Something New
by padfoot's prose
Summary: When you're a boy who likes other boys, nothing you see or touch or hear is ever entirely new. Everything tends to be something you're already pretty well-acquainted with. Still, Kurt knows he has a whole bunch of firsts to start crossing off his list.
1. Prologue

_**Something New:**_

**a story of Klaine 'firsts'**

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><p><em>Don't forget to submit a 'first' for me to write. It can be a situation, an event, an action, a word, a gesture, a pet, a kink - ANYTHING!<em>

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><p><strong>~The Sue Sylvester Shuffle...<strong>

Occasionally, Finn would say things completely unexpected. Sometimes, standing in the kitchen with Kurt after they'd finished the washing up, he'd settle back against the bench and fall silent, waiting. In any other situation, Kurt knew his step-brother would never be so placid, so unaware of his surroundings that every thought that crossed his mind was voiced. Yet, late at night, when they each clutched a mug of warm milk, and Finn wiped the remnants of detergent froth from his finger thoughtfully, he still managed to surprise Kurt.

"Don't you want to know what it's like to be with a girl?" he suddenly asked, his tone so innocently curious that Kurt was taken aback for a moment by the honesty.

Placing his own mug of (non-fat, skim, organic) milk onto the bench behind him, Kurt took his time to arrange his expression into something suitably neutral before turning around to reply, "What do you mean?"

Finn shrugged, taking a quick sip from his mug. He swallowed, hunching his shoulders and bringing his arms closer to his chest as the warm liquid settled in his stomach.

"I just mean that, well, since you're gay, you're never going to get to touch a girl – you know, in _that_ way – or, like, see her _boobs_. I mean, you're never going to have sex like- like that? Right?"

Kurt blushed, not because he was embarrassed, but because it was instinct. The word 'sex' had been uttered aloud, and now it floated in the air between the two boys like an unsolved mystery. Cheeks still flaring crimson, Kurt looked at the floor, feeling slightly queasy as images of girls and boobs and lips and Brittany flashed before his eyes.

It wasn't that he didn't like girls – Mercedes was a goddess, Quinn a fallen angel, and even Rachel had her moments (usually when it was lyrics, not words, coming from her mouth). But he just didn't like them like _that_. Trying to comprehend girls like _that_ was not so much impossible as it was unappealing. The images Finn had conjured were like a pickle on a plate – edible, yes, but not enjoyable. And, given that Kurt had spent so much of his life having pickles shoved down his throat, he was glad now for the freedom to refuse them.

"I guess not," he finally said. "But, honestly, that doesn't bother me much."

Finn looked flummoxed.

"It doesn't bother you that you'll never get to see a boob for the first time? Or touch one? Or see a girl naked?"

Still blushing, Kurt shook his head. None of the above held any real appeal to him, and he would be extremely glad if Finn would cease dangling the metaphoric pickle before him. Its smell was being wafted all over the place.

"I still get firsts," Kurt reminded his step-brother half-heartedly.

But Finn had stopped paying attention, already back to sipping his milk, eyes closed, fingers curling around the heat.

"I guess..." he muttered once he'd swallowed. "Is it the same though?"

"No," Kurt conceded. "It's not."

He pressed his lips shut, the blush now spreading to his neck as he turned back around to pick up his own mug. Finn was right, he supposed. Firsts would be different for him than for other guys.

Everything he'd see and touch would be something that he already knew about. Every sensation he felt would be one that could be reciprocated. Every logical reason suggested that he shouldn't be so interested, so fascinated, with a form that he could look in the mirror and see every day.

And yet, the particular form he was currently besotted with was undoubtedly very different to his own. All too easily, Blaine's dark eyes, dark hair and dark skin invaded his mind, bombarding his consciousness with such force that all remnants of pickle were obliterated instantaneously. Kurt's knowledge of his new mentor was admittedly limited, but already he was sure that every plain of Blaine was harder, rougher than the corresponding parts of his own body. The intrigue he felt to explore even the smallest glimpses, _touches_, of Blaine that Kurt had salvaged – his fingers, his palms, his wrists – was infinite, and Kurt's hunger for more was insatiable.

So, _no_, he concluded, taking another sip – _things wouldn't be the same_. Despite each new discovery, each new feeling, still being just as thrilling, just as terrifying as for any other boy, the firsts would be different. A whole different kind of new.

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><p><strong>Yet another cautious start, although I am much less apprehensive about this than about <em>Phantoms<em>.**

**Anyway, this idea popped into my head and I kind of loved it, so I thought I'd put it out there in the aether and see if anyone bites (that was a mixed metaphor, sorry).**

**Basically, this is a story of Klaine's firsts. I want you guys to send me a prompt (e.g. 'First Fight', 'First Day They Reveal Their Secret Identities As Superheroes/Wizards', 'First Present They Give Each Other') and then I will write a scene about that prompt. These chapters will NOT BE DRABBLES (hence, this is different to _Sesame Street_) and they will ALL BE PROMPTED. So this won't get written if you don't review/PM/send carrier pigeons. Honestly, I'm keen to write some really wacky things for this, so the challenge is out there for you to come up with something obscure.**

**It's really your call what happens to this story. This chapter is just meant as an introduction - this is the moment that Kurt starts visualising his and Blaine's firsts. The actual chapters will, of course, actually have Blaine in them. Unless the prompt means he can't be in it.**

**I'm interested to see what you think of this idea, but please, if you do want to see it continued, please, _please_ send me prompts!**


	2. First Night Together

**_Something New:_**

**a story of Klaine 'firsts'**

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><p><em>Don't forget to submit a 'first' for me to write!<em>

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><p><strong>~First night together + First night in the same room at Kurt's, prompted by MissMarauder93 and flower pot girl<strong>

When Kurt walked into his bedroom – arms filled with blankets, two bags of cookies and a pile of Vogue magazines – there were many things he wasn't expecting to see.

A rhinoceros in a hula skirt was probably at the top of the list. Dumbledore was somewhere around item number ten and, just scraping into the top one hundred, was the sight of Blaine, _not_ pining, _not_ even a little bit naked and definitely _not_ looking at all like he'd been waiting anxiously for Kurt to return. In fact, the hugely unexpected sight that Kurt walked in on was his boyfriend, back turned, headphones in, eyes glued to the screen of his iPhone and huddled on the floor under Kurt's desk to minimise the glare from the lights.

"What are you _doing_?"

Blaine jumped at Kurt's voice, promptly knocking his head on the underside of the desk, dropping his phone and yelping when the movement pulled the headphones from his ears. As Kurt watched with an expression half-amused, half-exasperated, Blaine scrambled to grab the headphones, tangling them in his haste to replace them. His shaking hands only worsening the problem, eventually Blaine was forced to compromise, shoving one bud in his left ear and letting the other dangle uselessly above his shoulder.

Kurt watched the whole debacle from the doorway, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as Blaine settled back into his nook, hunching his shoulders and curling closer around the dancing light of his iPhone's screen.

Looking away from his boyfriend, Kurt walked slowly to his bed, depositing his armful of items there. Kurt took his time to steady his pile of magazines, getting halfway through straightening them before deciding they should be ordered by his preference instead of volume number and having to re-arrange them all. Then he opened one of the bags of cookies with painstaking care, making a supreme effort not to let one crumb of its contents to fall onto the bed. Next, he pulled the top blanket from the pile and spread it over the bed, pushing its woollen edges out so it lay flat on top of his doona, which was silk and certainly wasn't allowed to get stains of any sort on it.

A squeak came from behind him, making Kurt turn around to look at Blaine, still under the desk. From the back it was difficult to tell, but Kurt had a sneaking suspicion that his boyfriend was grinning widely, trying to suppress an outburst of emotion at whatever was happening in his phone.

"You okay there?" Kurt asked drily, rolling his eyes when his boyfriend made no sign that he'd heard.

Picking up another blanket, Kurt considered throwing it at Blaine, before deciding that that would be unproductive. Instead, he sat down on his bed, shuffling back until he was leaning against the headboard, wringing the blanket in his hands and certainly not pretending that it was the neck of whatever idiot had created the stupid show that Blaine was so insanely addicted to.

So addicted to that tonight – their first night alone, together, ever – he would rather be watching the show than, well, watching Kurt.

And _yes_, Kurt had known that this whole relationship thing wouldn't exactly be what he expected. And _yes_, he had known that, as Rachel had once pointed out, dating boys isn't exactly always so fantastic. And_yes_, he had known that – quirky fashion sense and love of Vogue aside – Blaine was essentially a typical boy.

But still, he had hoped that this might be different.

He had hoped that, while some girls' boyfriends miss a date or ignore them for an evening because the 'big game' is on (Kurt had never quite worked out how on earth you're supposed to know which game is the 'big' one), his boyfriend would be different. Sure, this wasn't a game that Blaine was watching, but for all intents and purposes, it seemed like the same scenario. Apparently, Blaine was not so different from everyone else.

"Um, Blaine?" Kurt ventured, giving up his assault on the blanket after deciding that a nasty letter to the show's creator would be much more effective.

Blaine waved a hand over his shoulder in a distinctly 'just a moment, old chap, I'm busy flossing my teeth, I'll get to you once I finish admiring this Monet artwork and reading War and Peace' way.

Kurt decided that an audition tape from Sugar showcasing her rendition of Led Zepplin's 9-minute epic, Stairway to Heaven, would be a more appropriate punishment to force on the show's unsuspecting creator.

Huffing out a sigh, Kurt kicked the remaining blanket off his bed, so irritated that he didn't even feel a pang of pain when the pure alpaca wool crumpled to a heap on the carpet.

This is what Blaine Anderson had decided to do on their first night alone together? No candles, no gifts, no declarations of undying love, not even a little bit of below-the-belt action. This. Blaine had sure been right when he'd said he sucked at romance.

It's not that Kurt was ungrateful. He understood that schedules were busy, school was difficult, and what with Glee club and homework and campaigning, there wasn't usually a lot of time to keep track of TV shows. But still, he had sort of hoped that tonight would be _special_. _Special_ in an italics, fireworks, roses, screaming-out-in-ecstasy way. Not that he had any inflated expectations.

Unfortunately though, it was not to be, and as Blaine stayed huddled under the desk, Kurt found himself drifting off to sleep. It had, after all, been a busy day. A very busy day. A day that seemed to go on and on forever and ever. A day so impossibly droning and dragging and lagging. An incredibly _long_, unimaginably _hard_...

...day.

...

"Kurt?"

Kurt's eyes flew open at the sound. He was now lying on his side, the blanket he'd been clutching spread over his body, and Blaine perched on the bed nearby, leaning over to look in his eyes. But all of that was peripheral. Because, at a much closer proximity, Kurt could sense a bit of problem occurring under the blanket.

It was Blaine's fault, really. Blaine's fault for being funny and interesting and amazingly sexy and amazing gay and amazingly in love with Kurt. And, for the past hour, amazingly inattentive. So maybe Kurt's subconscious had gotten to thinking while he was sleeping. Maybe those subconscious thoughts had become a little bit more conscious, and a little more and a little more until they were decidedly not-conscious at all and in fact very physical thoughts with very physical consequences. Such as the one Kurt was dealing with now.

"Blaine!"

Kurt quickly sat up, his voice much higher-pitched than normal, and as he giggled and coughed and blushed, making a show of embarrassment, he was really just trying to buy himself some time and figure out a way to get Blaine as far away from him as possible. Because that smell and that stubble and those freaking lips should simply not be allowed when a boy was in his kind of state.

"You okay?" Blaine asked, totally oblivious to Kurt's efforts to create some distance between them.

"Yep. Fine."

"Good."

Smiling, Blaine leaned in, and before Kurt could dodge it, his lips were pressing close and moist and pushing hard and-

Kurt groaned mortifyingly loud, but Blaine just grinned and moved closer, pushing his boyfriend down, back against the pillows. Blaine's hand reached up to hold Kurt's cheek before running down his neck, over his shoulder, along his side and settling on his waist. Rolling up into the palm settled across his stomach, Kurt forgot entirely about his little problem beneath the blanket, both arms moving to wrap around the boy hovering above him. Blaine let himself be pulled closer, wondering vaguely why on earth he had been delaying this for so long.

Sure, the TV episode was good, but this? This was sensational. Society clearly had it wrong – what with its portrayal of sports-watching, beer-drinking men. _This_ was what two guys were meant to do when home alone.

"Kurt..."

The word was practically a groan, uttered in a moment of freedom when Kurt's lips mercifully released Blaine's for a second before hungrily reclaiming them.

"Hmm?"

Blaine pulled away a little, opening his eyes. He managed to stop for the time it took for his gaze to sweep over his boyfriend's haphazard bed-hair, wide pupils and gaping red lips before giving in to temptation and diving back down again, murmuring, "You are so- _God_, incredibly-" he broke off as Kurt's teeth scraped his tongue, ending the sentence with another deep, incoherent noise.

With a new confidence inspired by the encouragement, Kurt slid his hips up again, this time not so careful to avoid altering Blaine's to his, uh... _situation._

Blaine gasped at the contact, twitching sideways as if tempted to roll off. A thrill shot though Kurt's body as the hand kneading his waist tightened its grip and the kisses being showered on his lips – then suddenly on his cheek, his jaw, his chin, his neck – betrayed the opposite desire.

Pushing further down to where everything was closer, hotter, harder against him, Blaine moved his hand from Kurt's waist to pull the blanket out from between them. As his hand returned to Kurt's waist, his knuckles skimmed over the drawstring of Kurt's pyjama pants, and Blaine couldn't suppress the thought that only one layer was left between them...

Plus his own pants. And probably underwear too, because Kurt wasn't the type to go commando.

But then the words 'Kurt' and 'commando' collided in his head, and Blaine was lost to the realm of mortals, giving up all pretence and uselessly rutting his own 'situation' against Kurt.

Which, in retrospect, was not the best idea. Because the moment he felt it, Kurt stiffened (oh, ha-freaking-ha – the _irony_) and dropped his arms from around his boyfriend's neck. The sound of them landing on the bed with a _fumph_ broke the sudden silence between the couple.

"Oh," Kurt said, somewhat shakily.

Above him, Blaine ground to halt, choking a little with the effort it took to stop the blissful movement that he had Only. Just. Started.

"Yeah. Sorry."

Kurt could feel himself blushing. Although, he was starting to suspect that this was a turned on blush, not an embarrassed one. It wasn't as if he was the one who'd been virtually dry humping himself a couple of seconds ago! But that was a weird and totally unnecessary thought.

"No, it's okay," he managed to get out, eyes looking anywhere but at Blaine. Wasn't that a fascinating chip in the paint on the ceiling! Kurt had simply never seen anything so deeply engaging in his life!

But Blaine had noticed. And, as usual, misinterpreted his boyfriend's shifting gaze.

"No, it's not okay. God, Kurt, I'm so sorry. You were just, I don't know- you seemed keen? But we both know I don't want to push you or make this go too fast or anything. I should've just..."

Kurt's eyes fixed on Blaine's, dangerously narrowed.

"Should've what? Waited for God knows how long until _I _made a move. Yeah, right, 'cause _that's_ going to happen!"

Blaine relaxed at the comment, chuckled a little, and moved off Kurt to flop onto the covers beside him, facing the ceiling.

"It _did_ happen just then. You with your- your _hips_."

This time, it was Kurt's turn to laugh, as he said, "Sure. Because it was my _hips_ that had you all hot and bothered. Not something just a little further south."

Blaine lifted his hands to his face, pressing his palms into his eyes. The sound was muffled when he teased, his tone mock-serious, "Never underestimate the power of your hips, Kurt Hummel."

"I'll try not to."

"Good. They're incredible. You're incredible, actually," he added as an after-thought.

"Not adorable anymore?"

"Not nearly as adorable as before. Adorable conjures images of puppies and kittens, and I would sure not want a puppy pressing his – y'know... – up against me like you were. In fact, I've had that happen to me. Needless to say it did _not_ result in the same reaction from me."

But Kurt had stopped listening halfway through his boyfriend's rant.

"So you didn't mind me pressing my... y'know, against you?"

Blaine, who had still been talking, broke off, turning his head to look at the side of Kurt's face.

"You think I _minded_?"

Kurt turned to face him, bottom lip clutched between his teeth. And maybe he was still pretty adorable, really.

"Did you?"

Laughing, Blaine sat up, reaching to tug Kurt with him so they were both sitting beside each other on the bed.

A flush flooded Blaine's cheeks as he gestured to his lap, where his jeans were doing nothing to disguise everything lurking beneath them.

"Does it seem like I minded?" he asked rhetorically, happy to take the joke at his own expense.

Kurt rolled his eyes, his own cheeks reddening as his stare lingered on Blaine's lap for a little too long. When he looked back at his boyfriend's eyes, he was grinning.

"I have a question about that actually," Kurt said, suddenly all business. As if he totally wasn't talking about the very unsubtle bulge in Blaine's pants. Even though he was.

Blaine raised his eyebrows.

"What?"

Kurt was biting his lip again, but this time it was purposely coy and edging quickly away from adorable.

"What on earth were you watching that got you like _that_?"

...

Burt, Carole and Finn arrived home in the early hours of the morning. Rubbing his eyes, Finn wandered off to bed with a yawned goodbye, and Carole shot Burt a tired smile before following her son upstairs.

How in God's name a family could _talk_ for quite as long as Rachel's had Burt would never understand. As he plodded sleepily into the lounge room, he was only grateful for the fact that the singing had been kept to minimum. Finn had assured him and Carole that this, at least, was a small mercy.

It took about ten seconds of staring dumbly at the couch for Burt to finally comprehend that it was utterly bare of one Blaine Anderson. He wasn't exactly about to have a heart attack (too soon?) at the revelation, but he still grumbled out a breath before turning and heading upstairs to his son's room. If he found out that _any_ funny business had gone on _whatsoever_, Kurt would be grounded until the end of the century. And that phrase had taken on a whole new meaning since the year 2000 had rolled past.

Trudging along the hallway, away from the inviting bedside lamp that Carole had turned on in their bedroom, Burt paused at Kurt's door, wondering what sort of sight he should prepare himself for. In his last year with the boys, he had walked in on some pretty serious stuff, but both Finn and Kurt were getting a lot better at hiding, and these days all Burt knew for sure was that he didn't really know what was going on.

But Kurt's door was open a crack, and he'd known that the family would be home at some stage, so as Burt took a deep breath and pushed it open, he desperately tried to reason that there was no way the sight that met him could be too scarring.

When Burt looked into his son's room, there were a lot of things he hadn't been expecting to see.

A walrus in a pirate hat was probably at the top of the list. Gandalf was somewhere around item number ten and, just scraping into the top one hundred, was the sight of Blaine – fully clothed! – curled comfortably around Kurt. Together, it was clear they had no regard for the outside world with all its judgements and rules and stupid, stupid people, happy to be just two teenagers in love, taking the time to fall asleep together. A blanket was draped over the pair, as if they couldn't quite convince themselves that it was wise to get under the covers, and their feet stuck out from its end, Blaine's sock-clad toes stretching out to tickle Kurt's ankles.

And, sure, they could've staged this whole thing, created an innocent facade to cover up the dark and dirty deeds that had truly gone down while Finn, Carole and Burt were gone, but somehow Burt doubted it. Something about the way Blaine's arm curved around Kurt's waist, his hand resting on top of the blanket where their fingers were entwined, seemed to suggest that actually these were just two boys who were very much in love, but very much not ready to get too serious too soon.

They were still kids, after all, Burt reasoned, backing out of Kurt's room and shutting the door as he left. They had the rest of their lives to get started on all this wonderful, complicated, worth-it-in-the-end adult stuff.

Besides, the socks on Blaine's feet just _screamed_ virgin.

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><p><strong>Now THAT is a proper chapter!<strong>

**I've been hyperactive for approximately four hours now. It started with me sitting under my desk hyperventilating because the new Glee episode was out, and it ended with this. A story that started the same as mine but then went in a very different direction to reality. Unfortunately.**

**If you've seen The Purple Piano Project there are a few little in-jokes in this. If not, I don't think anything was particularly spoiler-ish. Too late to warn you now if it was!**


	3. First Wet Dream

**_Something New:_**

**a story of Klaine 'firsts'**

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><p><em><strong>WARNING!<strong>_

___This chapter stretches the boundaries of the T-rating, so please proceed with caution.  
>If you are worried about inappropriateness, skip the four long paragraphs following the scene change, and skim pretty much everything after that. <em>

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><p><strong>~First 'wet' dream, prompted by ZeebaDeeba<strong>

"I swear eggs don't taste like they're healthy."

The comment made Kurt sigh into his Calculus homework before glancing up at Blaine, who was sprawled across his bed on the other side of the room. A pencil was clutched between Blaine's teeth, swinging back and forth like a metronome as he squinted down at _Great Expectations_, eyebrows pinched in a frown.

"Oh," Kurt replied.

Without so much as a glance at his boyfriend, Blaine turned a page of his book, pulling the pencil from his mouth to underline a passage, then biting onto it again, tapping it with it his finger to start the same back and forth swinging as before. Kurt looked back to his books, trying to focus.

"I mean, people go on and on about they have all this protein in them and other great nutritional stuff, but I really think they just taste like fat. And salt. Wait- does fat even have a taste?"

Thoroughly unengaged by his work, Kurt looked back over at Blaine, checking if the question was directed at him. It didn't seem to be, as Blaine was still thoroughly immersed in his novel, eyes whizzing down the page as he read.

"Oh," Kurt said, turning back again.

"I think fat _does_ have a taste," Blaine chimed, the moment Kurt had re-focussed on his Calculus. "Kind of thick and milky, but not really _milk_-milky, just sort of, how milk would taste if there weren't as much..._milk_in it, you know?"

Absolutely positive that this question was rhetorical, Kurt stubbornly refused to look up, forcing himself to concentrate on his work. _Find X_, the totally-not-annoying font ordered. Scanning the graph beneath, Kurt searched for some indicator of where to start. There was a Y just left of the origin, an R up in the 2nd quadrant and a Q down in the bottom-right corner, but among the maze of lines criss-crossing the page, Kurt could see no X. He turned the page, moving on to the next question.

_Find X_.

He wanted to scream.

But Kurt Hummel wasn't the type of person to scream at Calculus. Kurt Hummel could do Calculus, Kurt Hummel understood Calculus, Kurt Hummel refused to be bested by a text book.

"Then again, I guess cream tastes like fat, because cream essentially _is_ fat, but cream also tastes like milk. Like, _milk_-milk. And cream doesn't taste like eggs..."

Being bested by Blaine, though, was a completely different story.

"Argh!" Kurt shoved his book off his desk and it landed on the carpet with a resounding thump. "Blaine, please, can you just be quiet!"

Not looking over at the bed, because he could just picture Blaine's expression and didn't want to have to confront it in person – all wide eyes and pouty lips and _God_, it was not fair that he could _look_ like that – Kurt bent down to pick up his book, replacing it on his desk and flicking quickly back through to the correct page. He sighed, picked up his pen, and restarted his search for X.

It wasn't that Kurt didn't love being with Blaine. Whether they were doing homework (which, given Dalton's jam-packed syllabus and the work Kurt had missed out on while he was away from McKinley, they often were), watching TV or just sitting around talking, it was always a pleasant experience. Pleasant, because Kurt had never before been able to sit next to someone and think calmly to himself, _that's my boyfriend_. It was silly, he knew, but there was a sort of thrill that came from knowing that the person beside you on the couch or just across the room or chatting to your brother in the kitchen was your boyfriend. Knowing that that person kind of liked you in a kind of special way.

So, it wasn't that Kurt didn't liked being with Blaine. He did. It was just that, at times like these, it was easy to get irritated.

Kurt was inexperienced and nervous and innocent, yes, but he was still a teenage boy. He still thought that, just maybe, when he was alone in his bedroom with Blaine, they'd be doing something other than homework. Or, in Blaine's case, talking about the perceived health benefits of eggs.

X was still being stubbornly elusive, and now Kurt felt bad for having snapped at Blaine, and that bloody puppy-dog stare was still stuck in his head, so he put his pen down again, sighed again, and – once again – looked over at the bed.

Kurt had to admit that, seeing his boyfriend sprawled across his duvet, there was very little to not be distracted by. It was no wonder Calculus was suddenly much more difficult than usual. Blaine's posture reeked of relaxation, from the soles of his feet (bare and hovering in the air, toes wriggling along to the beat of a non-existent song) to the top of his head (chin resting on his palm as he stared silently back at Kurt).

"Sorry for yelling," Kurt apologised, twisting around on his wheelie chair to face Blaine properly.

"Sorry for talking about eggs," Blaine offered in return. "I know you like them a lot, and don't like people complaining about them."

Shrugging, Kurt said, in a tone as sincere as he could muster, "I just think eggs are a very understated food. People are always throwing them and mixing them in with stuff and complaining about how they smell when they go off – no one ever really takes the time to appreciate them."

Blaine nodded seriously, his lips twitching slightly as he replied, "You're completely right. I couldn't agree more. We should make a group on Facebook for all the egg-lovers out there. So people like us can unite and talk about our feelings and-"

Kurt stood up and approached the bed, making Blaine break off.

"Or we could just make out," he suggested.

Blaine grinned.

"Yeah, we could do that."

So, see, the thing wasn't that Kurt didn't like hanging out with Blaine. It certainly had its perks. The main problem (other than the random conversations and distracting habits) was that right about when things started to get especially... _perky_ the 'hanging out' tended to grind to complete halt. Literally.

"Kurt, wait, wait- stop!"

Groaning with the effort it took, Kurt dragged his hips back down onto the mattress, creating evil, stupid, awful distance between himself and Blaine. He felt Blaine exhale sharply against his neck as he pressed another messy kiss there before lifting his head up so he could meet Kurt's gaze – frustrated, exhausted, and blown wide with _want_.

"Why?" Kurt asked, managing to choke out the question despite the fact that he was pretty sure his pounding heart was currently lodged in his throat. Which was an anatomical miracle given he was absolutely positive that all his blood was somewhere else entirely.

"Because we can't- we're not-"

Blaine didn't seem entirely capable of finishing this sentence, not that Kurt gave him much of a chance, leaning up swiftly to capture his boyfriend's lips and swallow the half-formed explanation.

This was all still kind of new to both of them, and Blaine was probably right about them not being ready to do the stuff that this was leading to. But God, sometimes Kurt _wanted_ – wanted so much that it _hurt _– and it didn't seem entirely fair that all over the world other people were just grabbing on to what they wanted with both hands, whereas here he was, having to very carefully keep his hands far, far away from what they wanted oh-so-desperately to grab. And squeeze. And rub. And-

"Oh, no," Kurt moaned, feeling pressure begin to build in his stomach. "No, no, no, no, no. Please no, just-"

Blaine pulled back, much further back than Kurt had managed, and Kurt wasn't sure if the embarrassing sort of moan he let out was from relief or frustration. Because he was so agonisingly _close,_ and this was not what he had been talking about when he'd said 'no'.

"Sorry," Blaine said, sounding worried. "Did I do something wrong?"

Kurt shook his head, not quite capable of stringing a sentence together just yet.

"You sure?"

Blaine was still _talking_, and honestly, that was doing nothing to help Kurt's situation.

"Are you really sure? Because you look kind of- um..."

Clearly, Blaine was being careful. After the whole sexy faces/gas pains debacle, Blaine had demonstrated his tact and ability to learn quickly by never again commenting on his boyfriend's expressions. It was mostly a good thing, because lately the weird expressions issue had become a two-way street, not that Kurt was ever planning on mentioning that to Blaine because it was rude and because Blaine was being so good about not mentioning it to him. Still, this was definitely a delicate topic for both of them.

Blaine chose not to finish the sentence, opting for silence instead as he rolled completely off Kurt to lie on his back beside him. Both boys were panting a little, although Kurt was sure he had it worse, hands twitching from the effort it took to stay exactly where they rested on the covers and not leap up to finish this blissfully painful process that Blaine had started.

"Sorry," Blaine ventured again.

"It's okay," Kurt whispered back, now able to close his eyes tight and focus on car crashes and dead kittens and his grandma and- yep, that did it.

"I shouldn't have... um..." Blaine started, but then trailed off because he still seemed unsure about exactly what he'd done wrong.

"You shouldn't have started kissing me," Kurt pointed out, his voice still sort of breathy. Then he laughed, saying, "Actually, I guess I shouldn't have started kissing you. Because starting means we have to stop, and the stopping is a real pain."

Blaine chuckled too, turning his head to look at the side of Kurt's face. His breath tickled Kurt's cheek as he murmured, "Maybe we should try not stopping then. Some time. If you want."

The highly effective image of his grandma torturing a goldfish dissolved entirely from Kurt's brain at those words, to be replaced with much more pleasant ones- which he quickly (and reluctantly) cut off, filing them away for later.

"I want," he assured his boyfriend, eyes still closed.

"Me, too."

Blaine shuffled closer, his hand reaching out to trace Kurt's jawbone as he kissed his cheek sweetly. Then he sat up, pressing one last kiss to Kurt's forehead before moving off the bed.

Kurt stayed where he was – lying still on his back with his eyes closed, silently thanking the universe for creating skinny jeans because everyone knows they bulge no matter what's going on underneath – and listened as Blaine picked up his book from where it had fallen off the bed. Another few minutes passed in silence, Kurt keeping his eyes very firmly shut as his boyfriend presumably retrieved all the rest of his belongings that had scattered over the room in the course of the day.

"I should probably go," Blaine finally said, his voice sounding far away.

Kurt quirked an eye open, finding Blaine standing by the door, scratching his neck awkwardly.

"Okay."

"See you soon?"

"Soon."

With one last grin, Blaine left, and Kurt could hear him shout a goodbye to Burt and Finn, who were still watching a basketball game in the lounge room. Outside, Kurt listened to the front door slam shut, the_bipbip_ of Blaine's car being unlocked, its door opening and closing again, and then finally the sound of it pulling out of the drive and disappearing down the street.

Now he was alone, and no one would suspect a thing if he just closed his door and dealt with this problem before going back to his Calculus homework. Urgh – now why didn't he just think of _that_ when he was looking for something to calm him down earlier?

Because of course, now that Blaine had gone and all the wonderful kissing and pressure and fingertip touches – and, wow, how could it only have been a few weeks ago that he thought they weren't sexy? – had stopped, Kurt was very quickly losing his desire to deal with his situation. In fact, he was very quickly losing the situation altogether.

Growling in frustration, because it honestly wasn't fair to come that close and then have bloody Calculus homework jump out and kill every single iota of buzz left in his body, Kurt sat up. He was in that awkward stage where things could go either way, and maybe if he closed his eyes and indulged for a few minutes he could convince himself to finish this properly, but that just seemed kind of pathetic, especially when a cold shower would just as easily do the job for him.

"I hate you," he muttered to his text book as he passed his desk, grabbing a change of clothes and heading to the bathroom.

...

In retrospect, taking a shower was probably a bad idea. Because showers had always made Kurt tired, ever since he was a kid and his Mum would shove him in there, turn on the warm water and sing him a lullaby if he was complaining about not wanting to go to bed. In fact, thinking about it as he drifted off to sleep, the post-shower feeling of warmth and cleanliness settling around him like a woollen blanket, Kurt decided that this shower thing really wouldn't be a great instinct to retain, especially if his sex life ever reached the kind of heights he had recently taken to imagining it would.

For instance, he could just imagine if, two or three years from now, when he and Blaine were living in New York together, he came home after a successful audition (of course) to the sound of the shower running. And because they were older and everything was legal and not scary and comfortable and _right_, Kurt decided to join his boyfriend in there. And then say things got a little steamy – wet hands running over arms and ribs and thighs, moist lips licking, nipping, biting into collarbones and earlobes, groans and whines and all those perfect little noises Blaine made when Kurt's lips settled over his Adam's apple – and it got to the point where the water was all over them and their hair was ruined and it was so excruciatingly warm that it was almost too hot because he could feel Blaine against him, not Blaine the person but, _Blaine_. And they were pressing close and God, it should be uncomfortable because they're in a shower and it's slippery underfoot and it's frosted glass pressing into his back but it so, so isn't even the slightest bit uncomfortable.

By this point, Kurt had totally lost his train of thought and was about ninety percent sure that he was dreaming. Because, as far as he knew, he wasn't New Yorker and his shower didn't have frosted glass and whoever owned the shower he was imagining was really going to be quite cross when they found out what was going on in there. But it was such a wonderfully comprehensive dream – complete with all the details right down to that funny little scar on Blaine's shoulder that Kurt was just dying to ask about but was sort of scared of the answers because if they were bad it would make it entirely creepy just how turned on he sometimes was by it and how much he wanted to press his lips to it and to kiss it again and again and again to see if maybe he could heal it, if he could kiss away all the past pain that Blaine had gone through.

In the comprehensiveness of it all, Kurt could almost feel Blaine's hands on him. He could feel them settling on his hips where Blaine's palms curled around the bones, fitting perfectly in the little hollows around them because, let's face it, the two of them were made to be together and every single plane of them just _fit_. Then Blaine's hands ventured a little lower, slowly and gently and carefully and Kurt could feel the intensity of Blaine's eyes on him, the way they were boring into his and Kurt knew he was looking back because there's no way he could close his eyes to this. Except that, rather than being able to see anything at all other than a gold that he's pretty sure is all Blaine, Kurt could only _feel_ sensations – the sense that gazes were locked, that skin was wet with a strange, exotic cocktail of sweat and water and desire, that the rough, confident, perfect hands on him were running lower and lower and more and more softly until-

It was a choked sound that awoke Kurt, shaking and covered in sweat and wondering what on earth that ungodly noise was until he realised that it was himself and it suddenly shut off.

"You okay, Kurt?" his Dad called from downstairs and no, no, he wanted to scream, I'm very much not okay. But that was his _Dad_ and sure, they were close, but this might just be taking it a step too far.

"I'm fine!" he shouted back, cursing his voice for being all high and tired.

He was meant to be sleeping! He was meant to be taking a perfectly innocent nap before starting on his Calculus homework. He was meant to be rejuvenating after an exhausting morning of very light, innocent, taking-it-slow making out.

Kurt opened his eyes, daring to let them flicker down to his middle. The sheets were ruined. So were his pants. So was his shirt. If he weren't so disgusted by it he'd be impressed that there was that much... stuff... in him at all!

And, God, now he understood why sex had made him uncomfortable for so long. This wasn't comfortable at all. This was sticky and beginning to get cold and it made him feel sort of dirty, as if he should have had better control of his mind than to let it wander off like this. It utterly astounded him that things like this happened to teenage boys all the time, because sure, it had happened to him before, but never on this grandiose of a scale. And never because of _Blaine_.

Stupid Blaine with his stupid smile and his stupid eyes and hands and neck and the way he-

Clearly, Kurt was going mad. Because he was _not_ going to go down this path for a third time today. Two was quite enough thank you very much.

So he sat up, tucked himself away - and seriously, he had undone his freaking jeans in his sleep? It usually took him half an hour to get dressed in the mornings, and yet _this_ he could manage semi-conscious? - and pulled a handful of tissues from the box beside his bed, beginning to clean up.

He'd just finished changing his clothes, wondering how on earth he was going to hide all of this from Carole, when his phone rang on his desk. Dumping his dirty clothes on the floor (something that he would never admit to doing but, seriously, they weren't going anywhere near his furniture), Kurt went to pick up it, smiling at Blaine's name on the screen.

"Blaine?"

"Hey, Kurt. Sorry to bother you-"

"You're not bothering me." At least not in the sense Blaine had meant.

"-right, well, good. Anyway, I just remembered that I forgot to wish you good luck for New York. I know you guys will be fantastic. First place at Nationals, right?"

Kurt grinned at Blaine's enthusiasm, answering, "Yeah, sure. Only, don't get your hopes up too much. Mostly I'm just going to be scouring the area, looking for the best place for us to go once we finish school."

They'd already had the dreaded 'after graduation' conversation a while ago – well, not so much a conversation as Kurt shyly bringing it up and Blaine eagerly agreeing, as per usual – so this was safe territory to joke in. Strange how two-years-away plans were safer territory than sexy-expressions. Maybe Kurt needed to reassess the nature of his and Blaine's relationship...

"Sounds like the perfect plan. What sort of stuff are you looking for?"

Kurt wandered over to his bed, biting his lip to hold back a grin. It should not be this easy to be this crazy about someone.

"Well, it needs to be in the right area – either close to Broadway or close to the subway so we can get to Broadway easily for all our auditions. And, you know, not too dodgy, although I'm sure you'd protect me from all the evils of New York City."

"Like your own personal Spiderman," Blaine vowed.

"The interior needs to be right too, of course. Two bedrooms so Rachel can stay over if she needs to. A big kitchen so I can cook whatever I want whenever I'm stressed. The living room can be kind of small, because then we're allowed to only have one couch that we can cuddle up on while any guests have to sit in a separate armchair. And a bathroom with a frosted glass shower screen."

"Why frosted glass?"

Oops. Kurt could feel his face glowing like a hot plate, and was extremely glad that Blaine couldn't see him.

"No reason," he squeaked out, sitting down on the bed, carefully avoiding the stain on the sheets. "I just like frosted glass."

"Yeah..."

Blaine was silent for a while, and Kurt took the opportunity to scrutinize the damage he'd made. The stains were definitely drying in now, and he was pretty sure he'd have to wash them out of the sheets himself, doing his best with soap and hot water before surrendering them to Carole for a proper washing and hoping that she didn't notice.

Something crinkled under a fold in the sheets as Kurt prodded at them, and he muttered, "Hang on a second," into the phone before putting it on his bedside table and reaching under the covers.

"Oh, no."

It began to come back to him as he pulled his Calculus book out that he'd brought it to bed with him and laid it on his lap, intending to work, before he'd fallen asleep. Thankfully, it had fallen off his lap, but Kurt wasn't sure when or how and it didn't make a huge difference anyway. There was still a very unseemly stain across its open pages, damp but not wet, but still definitely not the kind of stain that could be ignored.

From his bedside table, he could hear Blaine's voice, asking what was going on.

Sighing, Kurt deposited the book back onto the sheets, and retrieved the phone.

"-everything okay?" Blaine asked, evidentially finishing a sentence.

"Everything's fine," Kurt replied, shooting a glance at his ruined book. "Just realising that life's a little different with you around."

There was a pause where he could only hear Blaine breathing slowly, the sound so impossibly close that Kurt let his eyes flutter shut, loving the feel of it right by his ear.

"Different-good?" Blaine finally asked, his voice barely a whisper.

"Different-fantastic," Kurt assured him with a grin. There was another moment of wonderful silence before he said, "I just have one question for you."

"Hmm?"

"When I get back, do you think I could borrow your Calculus book?"

* * *

><p><strong>Many 'thank you's to my wonderful new beta Dylan8!<strong>

**Anyone else counting down the days 'til November 4th? Just over a month until I'm free!**

**(And really, I should be a lot more stressed about this. I have the exams that my entire life so far has been leading up to in just under a month. Hmm. That's scary.)**


	4. First Night Apart

**_Something New:_**

**a story of Klaine 'firsts'**

* * *

><p><em>Don't forget to submit a 'first' for me to write!<em>

* * *

><p><strong>~First night apart, prompted by MissMarauder93<strong>

Usually, Blaine wasn't the fussing kind. He was cool, calm and collected, a skill he had learnt at great expense early in his move to Dalton. Before Dalton, he'd felt things a bit too much, cared too much, and that had hurt him. That had hurt a lot of people. But now – now he was cautious.

Which is why it shocked him so much when, the moment he'd gotten home and shouted a greeting to his mother, he'd slipped his phone out of his pocket and scrolled straight down through his contacts, stopping suddenly on 'Kurt' with his thumb hovering over the call button.

Because, seriously: _huh_?

"Are you hungry, honey?" his Mum called from downstairs, making Blaine pause in his bedroom door, bag still slung over his shoulder and eyes still fixed on his phone.

"Not right now – I had a coffee with Wes and David after school. Could dinner wait for a bit?"

Blaine didn't quite know why he was lying – or, if not lying, omitting from the truth – but his thumb was still poised over 'call', confusion addling his thoughts.

"Sure, I'll leave your plate in the oven for a bit."

Blaine nodded but didn't reply, stepping forward into his room and pushing the door closed. He moved slowly to his desk, placing his phone there and staring at it for another few seconds before shaking his head and turning around to extract his laptop from his bag.

Why on earth had he been going to call Kurt? He'd only met the boy this afternoon, and it wasn't exactly like they'd exchanged numbers with the promise to call every day. Or even to call at all. At the time it had been more of a precaution – _"Just in case you ever need someone," _Blaine had said, pushing his iPhone across the table – a kind little gesture offered in the spirit of peace and fellowship. But they weren't friends. They were barely even acquaintances.

And yet...

Blaine felt an uncomfortable anxiety bubble inside him as he stole another glance at the phone. His fingers searched absently for his charger, and when they bumped against the plastic chord it took him two attempts to actually pick it up and plug it into his computer. He was distracted and uneasy and wanted to call Kurt, and that very desire made him even more distracted and uneasy.

It was strange, though, wasn't it, to meet someone like that? The memory of Kurt on the stairs – how one moment he'd been another pair of shoes on the floor and then suddenly he... wasn't.

Blaine had gotten used to keeping his head down wherever he went, not that he needed to at Dalton, but it was sort of common practice for him now. It wasn't that he lacked confidence or was scared or anything like that, and in fact mostly he did it to keep a low profile, because not everyone was happy about him having taken so many Warblers solos in so little time.

Yet, no matter how unlikely it was, Kurt had noticed him. Kurt had talked to him, voice sure but posture shy, as if he didn't quite know how to hold himself in a school like Dalton, didn't quite know what to expect.

_Why me?_ Blaine wondered, sitting down at his desk. _Why not the boy in front or the boy behind?_

It felt somehow... karmic? Maybe not quite that, maybe just coincidental, that out of every single person, Kurt had picked Blaine. Out of everyone on that staircase – everyone in the school, even – it had been Blaine he'd stopped, Blaine he'd asked for directions.

But maybe it wasn't such a coincidence.

After all, he'd probably set Kurt's gaydar off the charts, and it would make sense for Kurt to want to stop him – the similar one, the safe one. And meeting with him afterwards made sense too, asking Wes and David to go, talking to him in private, it all made perfect _sense_, and yet Blaine couldn't shake the feeling that something about this was off.

It felt too intimate, too close, too claustrophobic. Blaine was the type of person who made friends easily – and why not? he was charming and charismatic and most importantly kind – but this thing with Kurt was different. Kurt had seemed lost, searching. Blaine felt like maybe he could help him, maybe in that moment when he'd grabbed Kurt's hand – a gesture that came so easily, because Blaine was honestly just the touching _type_ – Kurt had found something, just a little piece of what he was looking for. Like maybe, as he'd watched the Warblers sing and dance and _enjoy_, he'd been a part of something that he'd never truly let himself join in with before.

Kurt was lonely, Blaine decided, still sitting silently at his desk. Not just bullied and hurt, but lonely, in the truest sense of the word. He'd been craving attention, needing it the way Blaine needed it, because as long as people were watching him, he knew he was safe. In a crowd, on a stage, when perfectly practiced words were coming out of his mouth, Blaine always felt safest. Even if it was just rehearsing with the Warblers, there was a feeling of unity and strength. It had nothing to do with homophobia, it was all about togetherness.

For all his life, Blaine had loved being in the spotlight – that feeling he got when he was centre of attention and he was _good_, and everyone knew he was and- yes, that was what he loved. When he stood in front of an audience and performed, it was as if he was physically touching people – holding them – and they were gripping back.

Blaine had the distinct impression that Kurt was a person who needed to be held.

It was strange, really, that he felt so far away from him – like he very well _should_ be calling Kurt now – because they had been this distance apart for all of Blaine's 16 years. Now, the only difference was that he was conscious of it. Never before had he been aware of this strong, scared boy, so never before had he had the chance to be want to see him, help him, make sure he didn't disappear into the 6 billion other people crowding the planet.

Because Blaine knew what it was like to be in the middle of crowd, and yet utterly alone. He'd recognised the expression on Kurt's face, the shudder in his voice – he'd been down that road before. Yet Kurt clearly had the potential to be a star – he _was_ one of a kind, one in 6 billion – but for the hour that Blaine had known him, he'd barely shone at all.

And, God, it was stupid, but Blaine hated that. He hated that he'd gotten off, that he was back to the life he loved where he could perform and be tolerated and be liked, whereas Kurt was stuck in the real world, which just wasn't ready for people like them.

That was why it felt intimate, Blaine told himself. Because Kurt was a boy who _deserved_ to be great, and Blaine had seen that in his smile, felt it in the way he'd held his hand. This was someone who was used to being bullied, but who shouldn't have to be. And Blaine alone was probably the one person in Ohio who could do something about that.

Moving quickly so that he wouldn't psyche himself out, Blaine grabbed his phone, still showing Kurt's name, and tapped the call button. He held it by his ear and listened to the first two rings, heart hammering harder than it should've been.

"Hello?"

"Kurt?"

"Blaine?"

Kurt's voice said the word awkwardly, like it didn't quite roll of his lips properly yet. Blaine couldn't blame him. It wasn't exactly a common name.

"Sorry, is it a bad time?" Blaine asked, left hand moving nervously to run over his laptop.

"No, I'm just finishing off my French homework. What's up?"

It was awkward between them, and that was the first thing Blaine wanted to get rid of. If he was going to help this guy, really help him, in only the way someone who'd been through it all before could, he'd have to make sure they could talk without this strange tension hanging over them.

Forcing himself to smile and dragging his left hand down to rest on his knee, Blaine said, "It's silly, really. It's just- I got home and was thinking about what you'd said and everything, and then I realised – I don't even know your last name."

On the other end of the line, Kurt exhaled, and just like that the strained edge to their conversation lifted a little.

"It's Hummel," he replied. "Kurt Hummel."

"Well then, Kurt Hummel," Blaine repeated, liking the way Kurt laughed at it, "how are you?"

"I'm fine. Better than fine, actually. I'm good. It was- it was nice to talk to someone about it all, you know? Someone who maybe understands it a bit more than... everyone else?"

It ended up coming out as a question, and Blaine hastened to assure Kurt that he knew what he meant.

"Yeah, that's what I found. Coming to Dalton was great for that actually, because so many of the kids actually wanted to be there. That's what makes it different to public schools I think, people actually care about the school and each other and-"

"Are you being paid to say this?" Kurt cut in. "Because I can tell you to stop the spiel now – I'm already sold on the wonders of private school."

Blaine was pleasantly surprised at Kurt's sarcastic tone, and it made him think of that boy across the table – such an impossibly long distance that could so easily have been breached if only Blaine had reached out and-

But, no. Holding hands while guiding someone down a hallway was one thing. Holding hands while sitting alone at a table was something else entirely. Sometimes, Blaine still had trouble knowing where to draw the lines.

"No, I'm not being paid. I'm sorry though, I'll stop. What I meant is I get what you mean. About having someone to talk to."

"I know," Kurt said. "I was just teasing."

"Well you shouldn't," Blaine answered, a smile in his voice. "Didn't your mother ever tell you that it's rude?"

And, _huh_? He was flirting. Not outrageously, but still...

On the other end of the line, Kurt was silent for too long, and Blaine desperately wished he could take it back. _Too far!_ his mind screamed. _He's looking for a friend, a mentor, someone to talk to. Don't start hitting on him, you idiot!_

"God, sorry, Kurt. I didn't mean-"

"No, no, it wasn't you. It's just, my Mum, um- she's dead. She died. A few years ago."

_Oh, shit. Well, a great flirt you are._

"Oh, Kurt I'm so sorry. I just... God. I'm terrible at this. You're not Christian are you? Because I'm probably using the Lord's name in vain way too much as well..."

"No, not a Christian. I'm gay guy in Ohio actually, so I thought you'd have guessed as much."

"Never hurts to ask though," Blaine defended, grateful that the uncomfortable moment had passed. "So, Kurt Hummel-"

And Kurt laughed again and that shouldn't have sounded as nice as it did.

But Blaine could just picture that scared boy with the wide eyes and spidery hands – picture his whole face splitting into a doubtlessly swoon-inducing smile and him laughing, really laughing, letting his whole body go, letting all of that anxiety, that pain, that worry just disappear and-

_Woah._

_Stop._

"Yes?" Kurt prompted.

"I don't even know. I just like saying your name."

He could almost hear Kurt rolling his eyes.

"Look, Blaine, if you really didn't call for anything else, other to find out my last name, I really should be-"

"No, don't hang up yet."

Blaine was surprised at how his voice sounded – almost desperate, almost pleading.

"Okay..."

"I just- I wanted to break the tension, or whatever, between us. I get that we're both gay and that's rare in Ohio, but just because we've met doesn't mean it has to be awkward or anything. In fact, it probably means we should band together – pack mentality and all that."

"Blaine, usually a pack mentality is talking about groups of bullies and how they all like to gang up on their innocent victims. Pack mentalities are usually a _bad_ thing. You know, with, like, hyenas teaming up to bring down the baby gazelle?"

Kurt's tone had that sarcastic lilt again and it was condescending but it was also _hot_. Because, God, if he wasn't flirting then he was just a really good conversationalist. Maybe he was both.

"Okay, you're right. I more meant- I don't know what I meant. I just think it makes sense for us to be, well, friends. I want to help you, Kurt. I don't want you to go through what I went through, and even if I can't stop the bullies, I can give you someone who'll listen. I promise. Anything you need, I'll be there for you. As a friend, or a mentor, or whatever you want me to be."

"Friend sounds good," Kurt murmured, his voice suddenly breathy in a way that shouldn't be allowed.

"Friend it is then," Blaine confirmed. "Swear that you'll call me or text or something if anything else happens – _anything_ else."

"Anything?" Kurt asked, almost teasing again.

But Blaine needed him to know this, needed him to get that this was a long-term thing he was committing to. If meeting Kurt before hadn't convinced him, this conversation sure had: Kurt deserved to be protected. He deserved to be happy and safe and _like this_, and Blaine was going to do his utmost to make that happen.

"_Anything_," Blaine repeated emphatically.

"I'm going to hold you to that," Kurt's words were a warning, but he was doing that thing again where his voice sort of... deeper? _Something_-er. But Blaine had promised to be a friend, that's all, and he'd have to stop letting it get to him every time Kurt's tone changed.

Shifting on his chair, Blaine opened his mouth to say something back when he was stopped by a knock at his door.

"I have to go," Blaine said quickly, hating that it was so sudden. "My- uh, my parents want me down for dinner. Talk to you tomorrow?"

"Hopefully not, because that will mean I've been bullied again!"

"I'd like to talk to you anyway," Blaine pointed out. "Whether or not you've been bullied. Just call, or I'll call, or something. Or maybe we could go out for coffee and talk more. As friends."

"Coffee with a friend sounds good," Kurt said, and his tone was warm.

"Good. See you soon, then."

"Soon."

Blaine hung up as his mother finally gave up knocking, opening the door a crack to peer inside. Grabbing his headphones from his pocket before she could see, Blaine made a show of putting them away again, turning idly as if just noticing the noise when she knocked tentatively once more.

"Sorry, Mum," he said. "I didn't hear you." He gestured wordlessly to his pocket

"I should've known you'd be listening to music. I just came to say that your father's home. We could have dinner together."

Blaine frowned, "Him and me?"

"All three of us. I'd only half finished when he arrived."

"Okay," Blaine stood, tucking his phone into his pocket as he followed his mother out of the room.

Dinner was silent and uncomfortable as always, but Blaine took his time, refusing to let it get to him. Halfway through the meal, while his Mum was still poking at her broccoli, he felt his phone buzz and, with a glance at his parents, pulled it out to read a text from Kurt.

_Just ate dinner. It was spaghetti bolognaise, cooked by my Dad's girlfriend. Delicious. (You said I could text you about anything, right? :P)_

Blaine grinned, and his parents exchanged a look. Swiftly, he texted back, _That dinner sounds great! Does she put chilli powder in the bolognaise? It tastes amazing if you add just a pinch while it's cooking. (__Anything__)_

"New friend?" Blaine's mother asked.

Blaine shook his head.

"Just Cameron, asking about Chemistry homework."

His father kept his eyes fixed stonily on his plate, saying nothing.

...

Later that night, showered, shampooed and exhausted from far too much homework, Blaine collapsed onto his bed, checking his phone where it lay on bedside table one last time before switching off the light.

It was crazy, really, how much things could change in a day. Crazier to think that Blaine had no idea, besides a strange little inkling, just how much they had.

Because that night, Blaine fell asleep thinking of the empty space beside him on his double bed. He fell asleep thinking of bullies and public schools and stepmoms and spaghetti bolognaise – all the undiscovered miracles and terrors in a world far away from his sheltered Dalton life. For the first time, he fell asleep with Kurt Hummel on his mind.

* * *

><p><strong>Thanks again to Dylan8 for beta-ing at such short notice and to 'Sherry' the anon who pointed out a couple of other mistakes!<strong>


	5. First Summer Together

**_Something New:_**

**a story of Klaine 'firsts'**

* * *

><p><em>Don't forget to submit a 'first' for me to write!<em>

_Also, I feel obligated to warn you that this is epically long. But it's also epically awesome, so that makes up for it!_

* * *

><p><strong>~First summer together + First time meeting extended family, prompted by SK and flower pot girl<strong>

-1-

_That first summer together, Kurt learnt a lot of new things._

_He learnt that Blaine's house was halfway between Westerville and Lima, in an area right on the edge of the town where he had a backyard and a pool and, most perplexingly of all, two cats..._

"This is it?"

Blaine blushes, looking down sheepishly.

"It's kind of an old house, I know. Mum and Dad were going to get it rendered a couple of years back, but then everything happened with me and school and stuff and we just never really got around to it."

Kurt smiles sadly, picking up his boyfriend's hand from where it rests on the gear stick.

"I like it," he says softly. "It reminds me of the three bears' house."

Blaine laughs, the sound sudden and _loud_ in the empty street.

"No, really! Look, the chimney is like an ear, and the little thing there – is it an attic room? – that could be the other ear. Remember, in the book, the house was always shaped like a bear?"

Still chuckling, Blaine squeezes Kurt's hand before letting it go, leaning back to grab his bag from the backseat before opening his door and getting out. Kurt lets himself out and waits for Blaine on the pavement. His satchel is draped over his shoulder as elegantly as ever, and he bites his lip to hold in a smile as he watches Blaine struggle with the strap of his.

"Don't mind me," Blaine mutters, his neck finally straightening as his bag settles at his hip.

"I was just admiring the view," Kurt teases, no longer having to hold in the smile when Blaine grins widely, offering his hand again.

It's all so casual and so wonderful that both boys need a moment to take it in, just staring at each other as the prospect of an entire summer together stretches before them. Kurt has never had someone – someone like Blaine – to spend a summer with, and while the idea is certainly daunting, the excitement definitely wins out. His whole body is practically buzzing and he feels as if he wants to start right now doing all the things people do in summer and in love, because there's just so much to share with this boy, so much that he wants Blaine to share with him, and today sort of feels like the beginning of forever.

"If it were the three bears' house, my bedroom would be the left eye," Blaine finally says, nodding over Kurt's shoulder.

Kurt turns around to look at it, taking in the red curtains, pulled back to reveal a light-coloured interior.

"Now I know which window to throw pebbles at."

Blaine grins impossibly wider at the idea, leaning in a bit to softly bump his lips against Kurt's. It's barely a kiss, but it barely needs to be one. They have an _entire summer_ to kiss. Still...

Kurt's hand squeezes his boyfriend's tighter, pulling it around to the small of his back, forcing Blaine closer. Both are giggling a little – dizzy with happiness or horniness or just with _summer_ – when their mouths meet again, and this time it's definitely a kiss: open, hungry and blissful. A small sound comes from the back of Kurt's throat and Blaine's hand tightens, tugging their bodies closer.

The street is deserted and the weather is warm and the rustling of leaves is the only sound other than that of skin brushing over skin. It's too perfect for words and so neither boy tries to find them, just clutching closer, breathing deeper, kissing harder, trying not to let any fragment of this moment be anything less than sensational.

"Blaine, was that your car I heard outside?"

Another whiny noise comes from Kurt as Blaine pulls away, his palm jumping off Kurt's back where it was just beginning to curve down, thumbs about to settle in belt loops while fingers ventured lower.

"It _is_ you – I knew it!"

Blaine steps back a respectable distance from Kurt, opening his arms to let a tall, slim, dark-haired girl run into them. She laughs as she hugs him, propping her head on top of Blaine's to wink at Kurt, who smiles back in wide-eyed confusion.

"That means you must be Kurt," the girl says, turning to pull Kurt into an equally tight embrace. "Blaine's been telling us _all_ about you."

"Oh, I hope not," Kurt replies, blushing and shooting a glare at Blaine. "There's not that much to tell, is there?"

The girl shakes her head as she pulls away, reaching out to tussle Blaine's hair and heaving a dramatic sigh of, "You'd think not, but my baby cousin seems to think you're the sun and the stars."

Blaine huffs out an offended breath at the comment, but otherwise ignores the jab as he patiently makes introductions.

"Kurt, this is my cousin Alaina. Just remember 'no one's insaner than Alaina' and you won't have a problem with remembering her name. I can assure you that the rest of my family isn't as bad as she is."

Alaina rolls her eyes, throwing an arm each around Kurt and Blaine's shoulders and walking them towards the house. It doesn't take long for Kurt to realise that his boyfriend is right, and truly no one is insaner than Alaina, which is a relief.

Meeting Blaine's extended family – who Kurt had been forewarned were visiting for the first few weeks of summer – is brief, as everyone seems much happier to talk noisily among themselves than waste time with introductions to new-comers. Alaina keeps an arm around Blaine for the next fifteen minutes though, and Kurt is forced to wait patiently by the balcony doors as his boyfriend is pulled around the living room, submitted to at least five sarcasm-laden comments about _just how much he's grown_!

Eventually, Blaine escapes from the madness, quickly grabbing Kurt's hand and slipping outside through the large French doors, closing them behind him. The two walk around the pool to a corner of the backyard out of sight of the adults, and Blaine wastes no time in throwing his bag to the ground and collapsing unceremoniously beside it, patting the grass to invite Kurt to sit too.

"Grass stains?" Kurt asks, reluctant to comply.

Blaine rolls his eyes and stands up again, motioning for Kurt to stay where he is. Kurt watches his boyfriend jog back around the pool, opening the door of a little wooden shed and ducking inside. Blaine emerges a moment later with two beach balls, throws them into the pool, then goes back into the shed and then comes out again, this time clutching a towel.

"Here," he offers, spreading the towel out so Kurt can sit beside him without risking his new jeans.

"Thanks," Kurt smiles and sits, laying his bag on the ground beside him too.

The pair are silent for a moment, and Kurt realises with a start that, as the afternoon sun shines down on them, he can hear crickets chirping. The sound is a flashback to picnics in the park with his parents, where they'd stay back too late because he never wanted to pack up the perfectly matching set and would delay the task in every way he could.

Kurt feels Blaine's eyes on him, and looks over with a smile.

"Your house is wonderful," he says.

Blaine laughs.

"It's no New York," he admits, "But it's not bad. I've lived here all my life, actually. I know it's dumb, but I'm kind of scared to leave. Besides, I have no idea what Gar and Abu would do without me to play with them and stuff."

Kurt raises his eyebrows questioningly.

"The cats," Blaine explains. "Have I never told you about them? We found them when we were kids, back when Alaina and her brother (he was the one with the moustache – I will never understand how they turned out so different) and their parents (my aunt and uncle, the ones wearing- never mind) lived just down the street. We used to go exploring all the time and one day we came across these three little kittens in a box by the side of the road. Stuff like that never happens around here, and it was so sad that we had to bring them home."

"What happened to the third kitten?"

Looking down, Blaine shrugs.

"He died. That one was called Gus, after the cat in Cinderella. And before you laugh at me, I swear Alaina named them, not me. Well, I named Abu. She was the one crazy enough to come up with 'Gar'."

"What's 'Gar' stand for."

"Figaro, the cat in Pinocchio. To this day I don't know why she didn't go with Fig or Ro. But she started calling him Gar and it just stuck."

Kurt was grinning, pulling off his jacket and folding it neatly beside him so he could rest back on his elbows, gaze still fixed intently on Blaine as he rambled on about cat names and Disney characters and God Kurt had never thought it was possible to be this in love. Not so soon, not so young, not when he was just finishing his junior year and this was the first – the only – boy he'd ever done anything with. The only one that counted at least.

At some stage, Kurt realises that Blaine's stopped talking and started staring, blatantly ogling his boyfriend because, hey, it's summer and they're in love and it's allowed.

"I'm glad you like it here," Blaine admits. "I was worried you wouldn't."

"How could I not?" Kurt asks.

"I just know that you want New York. Apartments, traffic, noise, action – Westerville isn't exactly like that."

"Yes, but Westerville has something that New York doesn't."

Blaine cocks his head to the side and Kurt pushes himself up so they are at eye-level.

"You," he says simply.

And, amidst the chirping crickets and chatter of Blaine's family echoing across the yard, witnessed only by a tabby cat called Abu, the two start again from where they left off – kissing, clutching, touching, holding. Not because they're desperate or pushing or rushing, but because it's the first day of their first summer together, and right now it feels like it's going to last forever.

-2-

_That first summer together, Kurt learnt a lot of new things._

_He learnt that Blaine liked strawberry Fanta and tended to get through three cans a day if his cousin didn't hide them away on top of the fridge..._

"Blaine, your friend Kurt is here!"

Blaine sits up on his bed, looking out to see Kurt's Navigator pulling up in the driveway. He stands and walks over to wait at the window where he knows Kurt will be able to see him and, of course, the moment he's out of his car Kurt looks up into the bear-house's left eye, lifting a hand to his forehead so he can see Blaine through the sun's glare. They exchange grins, and Blaine turns away to rush downstairs.

Kurt is already at the door when Blaine reaches it, and Alaina has him trapped in one of her crushing hugs which Kurt is already all too used to. The sight of his boyfriend's exasperated expression as Alaina hug-walks him into the kitchen makes Blaine smile even wider, because that's his Kurt and his cousin and it's only been a week but they already act like they've know each other for years.

Once Kurt is freed, he takes a moment to peer into a pot on the stove and nod approvingly before approaching Blaine, tucking an arm around his waist and slipping his fingers under his shirt to stroke the skin on his back. Skin is new territory for them, and Blaine sometimes can't believe how desperate he is to get Kurt into the pool at some stage during the summer. They've already scheduled a family get-together here for next weekend, and the New Directions and Warblers are both coming over a few days after that, once Blaine's extended family has gone and there's a bit more room for teenagers to wreak havoc. Blaine secretly hopes Finn and Puck will dunk Kurt in the pool at the first chance they get.

"I missed you yesterday," Blaine murmurs, trying to ignore the way Alaina stares at the two of them, looking like she's holding in a laugh.

"I was with Rachel and Mercedes yesterday. You know I can't spend my whole summer with you. My friends want to see me sometimes too!"

"I know that," Blaine replies. "But why can't I come with you when you see them?"

Kurt exchanges a glance with Alaina who rolls her eyes, obviously giving up Blaine as a lost case.

Tone slow and patronising, Kurt explains, "Because when I'm with my friends they want to interrogate me about you. That wouldn't work if you were around. Besides, I need my girl time with them. I miss it."

Blaine is still grumpy and huffs out a muttered, "I could join in girl time..." but doesn't pursue the matter, settling with pressing a kiss to Kurt's cheek before pulling away and opening the fridge to grab a can of Fanta.

"You still drink that stuff?" Alaina asks. "Man, are you sure you've grown _at all_ in the last four years?"

Blaine looks down at himself as he pops open the can and takes a sip. Swallowing, he looks up again.

"I don't think I had to shave four years ago. So clearly something's grown."

"It worries me that you looked down when you said that, Blainey-boo," Alaina teases, before her tone turns conspiratorial. "Wait- do you mean you shave... _down there_?"

She shoots a glance at Kurt as she says it, as if asking for confirmation, and right on cue Kurt and Blaine both turn bright red. They haven't even really acknowledged that they both have a 'down there' just yet, and talking about what it actually _looks_ like is far beyond embarrassing. They refuse to meet each others' eyes for the next ten minutes or so, helping Alaina around the kitchen in silence as she orders the cooking of the family's dinner, babbling on incessantly with an evil little grin as if she knows exactly how much awkwardness she has inflicted upon them.

Half an hour lately, thankfully, the tension has been forgotten and Blaine is pulling his second can of Fanta from the fridge as he farewells Alaina, telling Kurt he'll meet him outside while he hurries to his room to grab a book. When he's back downstairs, Kurt is already outside, stretched out on one of the chairs by the pool in the shade of the shed. Kurt has his iPod plugged in, shoes discarded and sunglasses covering his eyes.

Blaine has never seen anything more stunning. Or more sexy.

He smiles at his own luck, jogging over to join Kurt, simply threading his fingers in those of the hand that rests on Kurt's stomach rather than saying anything. Kurt's lips twitch in response, but otherwise he doesn't make any move to signal he's noticed Blaine's arrival. Blaine doesn't care, settling down with his book in his lap, deciding that while reading one-handed isn't exactly easy, it is so, so worth it.

Hours later, the shade has stretched out like a blanket over the yard and mozzies are starting to buzz around the boys. Blaine glances over at Kurt, wondering why he hasn't reacted yet, and is suddenly struck with the thought that he might be asleep. Putting his book on the grass next to the empty Fanta can, Blaine leans over his boyfriend, carefully pulling his earbuds out and grinning when Kurt doesn't move. Cautiously, Blaine slips Kurt's sunglasses off, revealing his closed eyes.

"Kurt?" Blaine says gently, putting the glasses on the ground beside his book and then reaching up to touch Kurt's cheek. "You have to wake up, baby. Otherwise you'll get covered in mosquito bites, and I just know that you'd kill me for letting that happen."

Kurt doesn't react, so Blaine, feeling every bit the handsome Disney prince, leans in to kiss his lips lightly. The hand on Kurt's face can feel the movement come back to him, and Blaine's thumb skims along his boyfriend's cheekbone as his palm slides back to curve around his neck.

A sharp inhale accompanies a sudden surge in Kurt, his lips pushing up insistently as his arms encircle Blaine's shoulders, pulling him closer. Blaine lets himself be tugged down, lifting a knee to rest on the side of Kurt's chair. Kurt keeps kissing, keeps drawing Blaine in, and so eventually he gives in and lifts the other leg over so he's straddling Kurt's lap, one hand buried in his hair as the other grasps the arm of the chair, holding Blaine up.

There's a little crash as Kurt's iPod slips off his stomach and onto the grass, but neither boy pays any attention, relishing the space that it frees between them. Kurt lifts his hips up and _thrusts_ before he's quite aware of what he's doing, and the deep noise that it elicits from Blaine is enough to convince Kurt to do it again.

"Closer," Kurt mumbles against Blaine's lips, and his hands slide down Blaine's spine, bumping over the vertebrae to grip at the small of his back.

Blaine isn't quite sure of where this is going or what it means, but it feels good and lazy and is the best possible way to wake someone up, so he gives in to the pressure Kurt's applying to his back and lowers himself further, shifting his hips down just as Kurt's shift up and-

"God- _Kurt_..."

The words sound sort of gravelly and wrong but Blaine is impressed that he managed to say anything at all, and without really thinking about it he shoves his hips down again, their kisses now in time with their movements.

Kurt's tongue is in Blaine's mouth and their hips are moving against each other and Blaine has a vague feeling that this is furthest they've ever gone and if it doesn't stop sometime soon he's going to have a very embarrassing problem, but none of that seems to matter because. Well. This is incredible.

"Blaine! Kurt! Dinner!"

Kurt groans and flops down onto his chair and Blaine lets out a breath that he didn't even know he was holding. And suddenly there's space and time and a pause and they both very quickly realise exactly what they'd been doing.

"Sorry," Blaine says, at the same time as Kurt says, "Best way to wake up. Ever."

Then they're both flushed and grinning sort of guiltily, and Blaine buries his head in Kurt's neck, kissing it softly, a sharp contrast to the desperate, passionate presses from before. Kurt runs his hands back up Blaine's back to card through his hair, not pulling him closer anymore, just holding him in place.

"We need to go inside," Blaine whispers against Kurt's neck, smiling as he feels goosebumps erupt under his cheek.

"Hmm."

They still don't move, and Blaine wonders whether he could ask for Alaina to bring their dinner out to them. Out of everyone in his family, she seems the least uncomfortable with him and Kurt, although even she won't call them boyfriends. The others tend to feel it's safest to ignore Blaine most of the time, and he's used to it anyway, so has no objections. All he wants – all he needs – is Kurt. Kurt, Kurt, Kurt – underneath him, around him, with him; every limb entwined with his.

"Inside. Now. Or my Mum will kill you both."

Blaine jumps as Alaina's voice comes from much closer this time, right next to them in fact, and both him and Kurt struggle to untangle themselves as Alaina watches on with a frown. She bends to pick up Blaine's book and Kurt's sunglasses, handing them over silently once the boys are standing on opposite sides of the chair, both blushing crimson and shifting awkwardly.

"Dinner," Alaina repeats, and Blaine shoots Kurt a look of apology before following her inside.

Blaine's family is already sitting up at the large table in the dining room, and they all stare as the trio enter, Kurt and Blaine's heads both bowed to deflect the unwanted attention.

"Is your friend staying for dinner?" Blaine's aunt enquires, her tone formal.

Glancing at his boyfriend, Blaine feels a flicker of anger at Kurt's nervous expression.

"Yes, Kurt's staying," Blaine confirms, and he motions for Kurt to sit in one of the two empty seats by the table. "I'll just go grab myself a chair."

He heads into the kitchen for the tall stool that lives under a bench, opening the fridge to grab another can of Fanta as he passes. There's only one left on the shelf, and he shoots a glare at the box stowed on the top of the fridge, no doubt lifted up there by Alaina earlier that day.

Perching the Fanta on top of the stool, Blaine carries it out into the dining room, placing it beside Kurt, so he won't have to sit next to Blaine's mother.

"I got this for you," Blaine says, sliding the Fanta across to his boyfriend.

Kurt's nervous expression breaks into a smile, and beneath the table, his fingers trace out 'thank you' against his boyfriend's thigh.

-3-

_That first summer together, Kurt learnt a lot of new things._

_He learnt that Blaine loved to sing, dance, laugh and play, regardless of when or where they were: the pool, the living room, the car..._

No adults are there, and finally it's just Kurt and Blaine... and all their friends, splashing and laughing and yelling as they celebrate the summer in Blaine's pool.

Sam throws a beach ball at Puck, who head-butts it out of the pool, watching as it bounces across the grass to land near where Wes and David manage the barbeque, chatting about their choices for college. David kicks the ball back across the lawn, and everyone stops to laugh for a moment as it is blown off track by a gust of wind and instead sends one of the cats rushing from its hiding place in the bushes.

"You scared him away!" Rachel whines, standing from where she was crouched near the bush and picking up the beach ball, carrying it back over the pool and throwing it in.

"Don't worry," Blaine assures her. "Gar's an attention-seeker, he'll come back soon."

"Oh, an attention-seeker, huh? Who does that remind you of?"

Kurt and the Warblers laugh appreciatively at Jeff's faux-philosophic tone, and Blaine contents himself with throwing one of the chips he's fishing out of a packet at him.

"Rude!" Nick scolds, throwing a chocolate-coated sultana back from the mound in his hands.

Cameron intercepts the projectile's path, batting it off-course with one hand and then lunging forward to grab it in the other before tossing it into his mouth.

"Wanky!" Santana calls from the side of the pool, but she's eyeing him anyway and he's smirking back, sucking obnoxiously on the lolly in such an overtly sexual way that Tina giggles and looks away.

In the shade of the shed, on the chair that has, over the past three weeks, been officially christened 'Kurt's Chair' (mostly because Alaina thought it ought to be disinfected before anyone else sat on it, because, "Seriously guys, it's not cool to dry hump on a pool chair."), Kurt watches the chaos carry on. Mercedes is beside him this time, her eyes sad as she watches Sam enjoying his last day in Ohio. His Dad's already been offered a new job, and they both know it's not fair for her to ask him to stay.

"Don't be sad, Mercedes," Kurt begs. "Just be happy for today, please?"

"Easy for you to say," she shoots back. "You're boyfriend's not moving across the country tomorrow."

Kurt sighs, his gaze returning to said boyfriend as he sadly contemplates the slow demise of his and Mercedes' friendship. They've been drifting apart all summer – all year really, ever since he met Blaine – but lately it's been worse. She's grumpy and never wants to talk or hang out, and with Rachel constantly at his house to be with Finn, he's quickly finding himself spending more time with his rival than with his best friend. He has the distinct feeling that, soon enough, he and Mercedes' friendship might fade away altogether.

"You okay, Kurt?" Finn calls from the other side of the pool, where he's toying with a Frisbee, throwing it up in the air and catching it again.

Finn had received specific instructions from Burt to make sure Kurt had fun today – "Not _too_ much fun, though, y'know? Just make sure he spends some good time with his _friends_." – and was taking his role very seriously.

Kurt hoists a smile onto his face, assuring his step-brother that, yes, he's fine. But Finn's comment made Blaine look over, and now those hazel eyes are fixed intently upon Kurt, Blaine's gaze potent even from where he's lounging by the other side of the pool.

Hit by a moment of inspiration, Kurt gets up suddenly from his chair, tucking his sunglasses safely into his bag before moving a bit closer to the pool.

"Finn!" he shouts, "Toss the Frisbee?"

Looking confused, Finn throws the disk across the heads of the pool's occupants, and Puck makes a desperate leap for it, falling back onto Thad with a splash and a splutter as they both try to resurface. Kurt jumps to catch the Frisbee, then throws it on to Blaine, who has to jump into the pool to catch it mid-flight. His head pops out from under the water, and immediately he sends the disk at Nick, calling out, "Think quick!" at the last minute. Nick throws his handful of chocolate-covered sultanas up in the air just in time to grab the Frisbee before it hits him in the head.

"You're dead, Anderson," he growls, and then all hell breaks loose as he launches himself at Blaine.

Girls are screaming and boys are yelling and food and inflatable toys and people's discarded clothes are flying through the air. Artie is screaming like a madman as Brittany and Rachel fight to hide behind his chair, Mike is grabbing Tina and pushing her into the pool, letting her drag him in too. Lauren is in the perfect position where she sits beside the huge table of food, and she starts throwing well-aimed handfuls of Starburst and red frogs at Puck's head as he whips around wildly, searching for the source of the bombardment.

Kurt ducks into the shed to hide from the worst of the onslaught, but from where he stays in the shadows he can hear the moment when Sam throws his towel at Mercedes and she leaps up, chasing after him with cries of, "No way do you throw stuff at me, white boy!" And just like that everyone's laughing and running and being absolute idiots and Kurt can't believe how much he loves it.

Suddenly, a face appears at the door of the shed, and Kurt screams before he realises it's Blaine, thankfully unarmed, but still dripping from his leap into the pool.

"Having fun yet?" Blaine asks, and Kurt rolls his eyes, grabbing his boyfriend's arm and pulling him inside when a rogue Warbler catches sight of them and throws a cupcake that narrowly misses Blaine's shoulder.

"Who made the cupcakes?" Kurt wonders aloud and Blaine laughs, falling back against the shed's wooden wall as his laughter grows and grows until he's clutching his stomach and tears are falling from his eyes.

Kurt has never seen Blaine laugh like this before and it's magical to watch, transforming him entirely so that his smile seems to overwhelm his entire body.

_I love you_, Kurt thinks, shaking his head and grinning at the sight as Blaine slides down the wall to sit on the floor, his legs giving way at the strength of his chuckles. In that moment Kurt swears the day can't get any more perfect.

But then it does get better, because later, once everyone's left, Kurt, Finn, Rachel and Mercedes stay to help pack up, walking around with garbage bags into which they throw the food and rubbish scattered in every corner of the yard. Rachel's day is made when Gar re-emerges from the house, where apparently he'd been lurking after the beach ball incident, and as Blaine directs Finn in packing up the barbeque, Rachel and Mercedes crouch by the cat and stroke his sleek black fur, giggling as he purrs in sincere appreciation.

"I think I'm in love with your boyfriend's cat," Rachel admits when Kurt joins them, finally having filled his garbage bag.

"I'll be sure to tell Blaine," Kurt replies, kneeling nearby and reaching out to curl an arm around Mercedes' neck, hating that those sad eyes are back and yet knowing there's nothing he can do about it.

She lets her head fall to rest on his shoulder, murmuring a soft, "Thank you."

Mercedes car-pooled with Tina and Mike on the way there, so she gets a ride home with Finn, Rachel and Kurt, and then Blaine decides to come along because his parents aren't coming home until late tonight and Carole's promised home-made pizza for dinner.

"We need some tunes," Finn calls from the back seat, and Blaine waits for Kurt's nod of approval before reaching out and turning on the radio, dialling through channels until he finally finds a song they all know.

The mood in the car changes with the mood of the song, and suddenly everything is much quieter and calmer. Kurt hums along with the slow introduction, smiling when Blaine starts to sing.

_"Let it go  
>Let it roll right off your shoulder.<br>Don't you know?  
>The hardest part is over."<em>

Rachel joins in after that, nudging Finn to make him sing along to the chorus. Kurt glances up in the rear-view mirror to see tears pooling in Mercedes' eyes and knows she's thinking of Sam again. A red light greets them as they reach the outskirts of Lima, and he stares at her until she looks back.

_"I don't mind_  
><em>If it's me you need to turn to.<em>  
><em>We'll get by.<em>  
><em>It's the heart that really matters in the end."<em>

He doesn't say the words aloud, but mouths them along with the others, making sure she knows they're meant for her. Mercedes smiles wetly, turning away to stare out the window, up at the stars that sparkle in the darkening sky.

After that, the music turns happier, and Kurt can't help but laugh as, beside him, Blaine bops along to a Katy Perry song, hair still damp and untamed as he mimics the guitar solo that starts up next. By the time Finn has joined in on the air-drums Kurt is pulling up at the front of their house and taking an extra moment to close his eyes and take this all in before switching off the engine, rolling his eyes at the cries of protest when the music cuts off.

Because this – even if it can't last forever – is definitely good enough for now.

Finn, Rachel and Mercedes pile out of the car as Burt opens the front door, pretending to shoo away the extra company before smiling and calling back to Carole, "It was a good idea to make the extra pizza!"

Blaine stays where he is next to Kurt, smiling over at him in a gentle, beautiful, wonderful way that makes Kurt's stomach clench and his mind go blank. He opens his mouth to say something but Blaine shakes his head, leaning in to cover Kurt's mouth with his own. They only kiss briefly, far too conscious of their friends outside and Burt watching them from the house, but when Kurt makes to pull back Blaine's arms tug on his shoulders and he draws him in for a hug.

"I love you," Blaine says.

"Me too," Kurt smiles and, remembering one last thing he's learnt this summer, presses his lips hard to the hollow behind Blaine's ear, letting his tongue skate over the soft skin for a second. He relishes the feel of Blaine shuddering in his arms, letting out a ragged breath against his neck, fingers tightening on his back.

In that moment Kurt knows – absolutely, positively _knows_ – that it can't get more perfect. _This_ is perfection, exactly what a first summer in love should be like.

-fin-

* * *

><p><strong>The song is Little Wonders by Rob Thomas. It was playing while I was writing this, and that is honestly the only reason why I used it. So don't read into that choice of song too much!<strong>


	6. First Time Without Shirts

**_Something New:_**

**a story of Klaine 'firsts'**

* * *

><p><em><strong>WARNING!<strong>_

_This chapter is sort of... intense. So, whilst there's actually nothing inappropriate in it, it feels like it has inappropriate stuff.  
>If you are uncomfortable with that, you should probably just skim after the scene change.<em>

* * *

><p><strong>~First time without shirts, prompted by random4ever<strong>

"Blaine, you have officially failed at pet ownership. Five years ago, I thought I was leaving these guys in good hands, but now I realise that I was very gravely mistaken. Your cats are so incompetent that they are unable to bathe themselves. What kind of sick creatures have you brought up in this house?"

Blaine grinned at his cousin's words, flicking a few bubbles of froth at her from the squirming cat he was currently trying to wash. Alaina, anticipating the move, grabbed Kurt and tried use him to block the projectile. Kurt made a shocked, indignant noise, but it turned into a laugh as the froth fell pathetically to the grass, barely making it half the distance between Blaine and his target.

"I'll still bet that Abu is cleaner than you, Alaina. When was the last time you had a bath, hmm?"

Blaine stared up at his cousin with an innocently questioning look, raising his eyebrows when she refused to answer. He grinned at her silence and looked away to grab the hose where it lay by his knee.

There was a momentarily lapse in conversation as Abu made a sudden bid for freedom, letting out a screech and twisting wildly. Kurt jumped back and Aliana jumped forward, resulting in both of them colliding with a moaned, "Ow!" while Blaine threw himself at the cat, dropping the hose to wrap both his arms around Abu's writhing form and force him back into the large plastic box that was doubling as a tub.

It wasn't exactly the way Blaine had been intending to spend his day – honestly, his visions of his and Kurt's first few hours together after four torturously long days of 'family bonding' had primarily featured a bedroom instead of a backyard – but after Abu had showed up on the back porch half an hour ago with what looked like the remains of a bird hanging from his claws, Blaine had really had no choice. Besides, as much as he hated to admit it, Alaina was right. This cat simply didn't know how to keep itself clean.

"That's not fair," Aliana finally replied when the cat's chaotic escape attempt had been successfully thwarted. "They don't _have_ baths in share bathrooms in college. And the _one time_ I went without a shower for more than a week it was in protest."

"In protest of _what_?" Kurt asked, his tone horrified at the mere suggestion of such a blatant disregard of basic hygiene.

Blaine bit back a smile as he noticed his boyfriend edging away from his cousin, as if afraid her poor sanitation was contagious. Wise move.

"Um..." Alaina scratched her chin thoughtfully. "I want to say... trees? It was an environmental thing, definitely. Or maybe it was to do with the food they were serving... wait, no, it was because of a notice they'd put up in the common room, taking away some of our cable TV channels or something."

"A worthy cause, either way," Blaine summarised in mock-sincerity, meeting Kurt's eyes and winking at him.

A blush ignited in Kurt's cheeks and Blaine's stomach gave a pleasant sort of swoop. As had already happened too often in the past four days, he was struck with a flash of his bedroom and his bed and his _Kurt_, spread out and emitting shallow little pants and flushing all the way down his neck, over his collar bone, onto his chest-

The vision came to a startling (_frustrating_) stop, cutting off like a picture half-loaded on a computer screen. Unfortunately, below the line of Kurt's shoulders, past the tiny triangle of skin that generous v-neck t-shirts displayed, everything was still a mystery to Blaine. And it wasn't that he was desperate (much) or trying to make things go faster (much) or, well, horny (much), but Kurt was kind of incredibly beautiful and Blaine sometimes had a hard time resisting reminding him of that in every available moment.

In fact, Blaine had been spending an unprecedented amount of time over the past few days extrapolating. Pulling together glimpses of skin that he'd stolen – when shirts rode up, or creases appeared between buttons, or an extra millimetre of shoulder slipped out at the collar – to try and create some sort of picture of what was hidden beneath his boyfriend's designer sweaters.

Maybe, on some level, it was sort of creepy, but Blaine managed to ignore the potential creepiness by reminding himself that there were far creepier things he could be doing. Jerking himself off to his extrapolated images, for instance, would be worse, and he didn't do that. Often. Besides, it would certainly be a lot worse if he were fantasising about someone who he wasn't dating (like Jeremiah, Johnny Depp or that guy who'd once smiled at him from a few rows back at Buckeyes game his father had taken him to).

So, all in all, Blaine was distracted – nicely so, but infuriatingly so – when Kurt blushed. Then Kurt's smile did that little thing, where it sort of got smaller but _better_, and the swoop Blaine was feeling became more of an insistent tug, demanding all his efforts to keep himself kneeling on the grass and not leaping up to whisk his impossibly perfect boyfriend away to his room and have his way with him right now.

"Hey, Blaine!"

Blaine started and looked down, away from Kurt and his blush and his smile, hands instinctively pulling back before he'd quite realised what was happening.

"Blaine! Grab onto the cat or else- good job, Boo. He's off now."

Alaina's expression was amused and somewhat vindictive as she watched Abu sprint across the lawn, trailing little drops of foam in his wake. The tabby cat scampered immediately up a tree, rubbing his body against the rough bark in an obvious attempt to remove all of the strong-smelling shampoo from his fur.

Sighing, Blaine glanced between the foam-filled container and the still-dripping cat, dipping his hands absent-mindedly in the water to rinse off the dirt that had stuck to them when he'd leant on the grass, making a last desperate grab for Abu.

"Well, he's not going to come back any time soon," Blaine finally said, wiping his hands on his t-shirt and standing.

Kurt raised his eyebrows at the action, expression slightly appalled, but Blaine just laughed in response.

"You think that's bad," Alaina muttered as Blaine picked up the tub, grunting a bit at its weight. "You should see him when it rains. Mud pies, mud facials, even a mud snowman once."

"Wouldn't that be a mudman?" Kurt asked.

Alaina shrugged, "You'd think it would. But twelve year-old Blaine called it a mud snowman. And people wonder why he stayed single for so long."

She shot an exasperated look at where Blaine was now pouring out the contents of the container in the clump of trees at the back of the yard, Abu looking down at him suspiciously from his perch. Kurt watched too as Blaine leant the tub against a tree trunk, stepping back to peer up at the cat.

From across the lawn, it was difficult to make out any words, but it clear that Blaine was saying something to his pet, his tone one of negotiation, then condescension when Abu stayed exactly where he was, clinging stubbornly to the tree branch.

"Fine then," Blaine said loudly, turning away. "I wanted you to die of frostbite anyway."

Kurt held in a smile as Blaine headed back towards him and Alaina, expression annoyed.

"You do realise it's summer, right?" Alaina checked. "Abu isn't about to freeze to death."

"Yeah, he seemed to agree with you on that."

Blaine frowned a little as he spoke, sweeping a hand through his hair as he reached Kurt's side.

The three of them stood together awkwardly for a minute, no one quite knowing what to do next, and it struck Blaine that never before had Alaina been so effectively rendered silent. Blaine, of course, was looking at Kurt, who was looking back with an amused expression. His eyes raked from Blaine's scruffy collar to his stained t-shirt and down his jeans to the very bottom where the cuffs were rolled up. Then Kurt's eyes began their slow journey back up, and Blaine couldn't help feeling uncomfortable under the gaze, as if he were being judged.

"I'm all grubby now," he said defensively, drawing Kurt's eyes back to his. "Please don't let this outfit define me forever."

"Because God forbid I forget that fabulous blazer you usually sport," Kurt teased.

Blaine raised his eyebrows, about to say his customary response when Alaina cut him off.

"_You love the blazer_," she deadpanned in a low voice, performing what Blaine could only assume was a truly terrible imitation of him. "I _know_," Alaina continued, tone restored to normal, "I've _heard_. You need some new lines, Blainey-boo. Seriously."

Kurt giggled, erupting into proper laughter when he caught sight of Blaine's expression, eyebrows lowered in sour distaste at the mockery.

"I have _great _lines!" he insisted, glancing uselessly between Alaina's incredulous look and his boyfriend, still chuckling appreciatively.

"Sure you do," Alaina said sarcastically, patting Blaine on the shoulder. "Clearly they worked like magic on all the girls."

It was a low blow, even for Alaina, and while maybe Blaine should've attacked it, or at least talked about it, he was honestly more concerned that Kurt seemed to essentially agree with his cousin on this issue.

"Hang on, I _do_ say nice things. Real things. 'You move me'? 'I'm crazy about you'? That was good stuff!"

Meeting his eyes, Kurt opened his mouth as if to reply – as if to agree – but again Alaina spoke first.

"I'm _crazy_ about you? Man, could you two be anymore G-rated? What about, 'I'm _wild _for you' or 'you drive me _insane_' or 'I'm _nuts_ for you'? Get it? _Nuts_. Because you're both-"

"We get it, Alaina."

She was grinning in way that, when they were kids, had meant there was a whoopee cushion on someone's chair. Blaine didn't trust it one bit. So, before she could continue down the avenue of balls-related humour, he bent down abruptly to pick up the hose, removing himself from the conversation as he begun to roll it up, walking it towards the tap by the corner of the house.

"'Crazy' _was_ an odd choice of word, in retrospect, wasn't it?" He heard Kurt say, and Blaine was unable to stay annoyed at his cousin for long as she responded affectionately.

Perhaps constantly being the butt of family jokes wasn't exactly ideal, but Blaine could cope with Kurt being amused at his expense. After all, Kurt had spent so long being the punchline of everyone else's cruel pranks, and it seemed somehow fair that now he was getting back all the smiles and laughs he'd been robbed of before.

"-what I don't get is why he puts on that soft sort of voice when he's being nice," Alaina was saying as Blaine finished coiling the hose. "You know, it's like he's trying to appear less intimidating than he is. I sometimes think my little cousin doesn't notice that, to the rest of the world, he just looks like a 2-inch tall hobbit with a hair-helmet. Not exactly intimidating stuff."

"Take that back!"

The thought came to Blaine in what he could only describe as a moment of genius. Standing beside the tap, with one hand poised on the handle and the other clutching the hose, he grinned wickedly as Alaina and Kurt turned to face him. The former's expression was daring, just begging to be sprayed, whilst the latter looked almost murderous. Blaine weighed up his options.

"Take it back," he repeated, voice lower now that he had their attention.

"No way," Alaina replied. "I saw you throw that foam earlier, you'll probably miss if you try to hose us from there anyway."

"But what if he gets us?" Kurt hissed audibly.

Alaina shrugged, the teasing expression still dancing on her lips. "Do your worst," she invited.

With a shrug, Blaine twisted the tap.

Kurt screamed. Alaina turned on her heel and ran. Blaine took up pursuit.

Hose uncoiling behind him, Blaine sprinted across the lawn after his cousin, catching her up as she ducked around the shed beside the pool in an attempt to hide. Kurt was out of range, still standing closer to the porch with his hands thrown over his head in a futile attempt to block the initial blast, so Blaine let loose with the water, twisting the hose-head so a high-pressure spurt instead of a misty spray erupted from it.

Alaina poked her head out from behind the shed and was greeted with a face-full of water. Cackling with laughter, she dodged back. The chase continued for three laps around the little wooden shed until the hose suddenly pulled tight, now completely uncoiled, and Blaine was forced to stop.

"Ha!" Alaina teased, waving a hand out from behind her side of the shed. "You can't get me!"

It took Blaine about three seconds to notice the pool, Alaina and the fact that he had about thirty centimetres more hose to pull before it would come off the tap. Grinning and shooting a glance at Kurt (who by now had lowered his hands to watch the action unfold), he gave the hose an almighty tug, leapt around the corner of the shed and hit his cousin with a fresh blast of water, making her stumble back in shock, let out a scream, and then tumble into the pool.

Blaine dropped the hose and doubled over in a fit of laughter, realising too late that he was an easy target and paying the price when Alaina kicked a huge splash of water over the side of the pool and onto him. Spluttering in shock, Blaine grabbed for the hose, but it had started whipping wildly through the air, and he was forced to roll to the side as it banged down at the spot he'd previously been sitting. Suddenly, a pair of impeccable shoes, now covered in grains of dirt and cut grass, appeared beside him, stepping on the hose and trapping it so that Kurt could bend to lift it and aim it at Alaina. She dove down only just in time, and Blaine groaned as he and Kurt watched her twist underwater and swim away to the other end of the pool, far out of range of the hose.

"Fine!" she shouted when she finally re-emerged, shaking her head and pushing wet hair from her forehead. "You win! Now will you two get out of here so I don't have get out of the pool and be leered at."

"We won't leer, Alaina. We're gay, remember? Besides," Blaine continued, "you're my cousin. And that's just-" he broke off with a shudder.

Kurt smiled, turning the hose to the ground. As Blaine stood up, he noticed that Kurt looked at little shocked at his own bravery, and accordingly offered him a high-five, curling his fingers around Kurt's for a second before letting them drop.

"There's no way I'm hugging you," Kurt said immediately.

"Fair enough," Blaine replied. "But can you keep holding onto the hose while I go turn it off?"

Kurt nodded, keeping the hose aimed at the ground as Blaine ducked around the shed to run to the tap. He yelped as a jet of water struck him in the back and whirled around to see his boyfriend grinning at him.

"Sorry!" Kurt called. "Couldn't help it."

Blaine wiped his face as he continued to the tap, turning it off with a hard and decisive twist. He tightened it a bit, then turned around to see Kurt approaching him, coiling the hose as he went.

Kurt wasn't exactly wet, but he hadn't missed the water fight by any means. A few droplets clung to his face from Blaine's initial assault of him and Alaina, and there were dark patches on his shirt where he'd been hit later.

"Your family is crazy," he said when he reached Blaine's side, handing over the loops of hose.

Blaine laughed, hanging the hose over the tap and lifting the hem of his soaking wet t-shirt, giving it an experimental tug to check how much it was sticking to his chest. Yeah. A lot. He felt himself blush as he looked back up at Kurt, who also seemed to have noticed the sticking.

"Uh, I'm going to have to get changed," Blaine said. "Obviously. Do you want a towel or something? I can lend you a shirt if you need one."

Glancing down at himself, Kurt picked at the biggest of the wet patches on his chest, his expression disdainful.

"Yeah, I might need that. I don't think the designer had this in mind when they said, 'suitable for outdoor activities'."

"Probably not. Come on upstairs, we'll find you something."

For a moment Blaine paused, nervous and indecisive, but then stepped away from Kurt a little and grabbed the hem of his own shirt, pulling it off over his head before he could over-think it. He'd been wet enough anyway that, as far as texture went, what Kurt could see now was probably no different to what had been visible before. But Blaine felt somehow different, more exposed or something, and licked his lips quickly before turning away and busying himself with hanging his shirt over the back of one of the chairs on the porch.

Kurt was silent behind him, and when Blaine finally turned back, his boyfriend had taken off his shoes to lay them in the sun to dry, and was standing by the doors leading inside, pointedly looking anywhere but at Blaine. Motioning for Kurt to lead the way, Blaine followed him silently through the living room, shooting a nervous smile at his cousin, Alaina's older brother, and his wife who were chatting in the dining room, and then into the hallway. Blaine's mother was in the kitchen, and she gave him a questioning look as he passed by.

"Hose fight with Alaina," Blaine explained briefly. "We're just heading upstairs to find some dry clothes."

His mother nodded and then turned back to the fruit platter she was arranging on the bench.

While Blaine had been speaking to his mother, Kurt had reached the stairs, and he was loitering at the bottom of them, shooting Blaine a quick, flushed glance when he caught up.

"Mum says we can go up," Blaine said with a shrug, and this time he led the way, thankful that his father, aunt and uncle were out.

It was probably strange for Kurt, Blaine realised, to have such freedom. Burt Hummel tended to impose very stringent rules about where Blaine was allowed in the house, and what rooms he and Kurt could accommodate alone together. He seemed especially concerned about Kurt's bedroom, which of course made sense, but Blaine's family had just never been quite so strict about it all. As far Blaine knew, they were just happy for him and Kurt to be out of the way.

Blaine was silent when he entered his bedroom, heading instantly for his dresser and pulling open a drawer to fish out a shirt. Of course, he couldn't find a suitable choice to match his jeans, and really what he needed was to get changed completely and probably shower, because some chafing was starting to happen as well and that just wasn't what he needed right now.

Sighing, he bent to pull a pair of shorts out of another drawer, throwing them onto the floor beside him and then turning to open his cupboard and find a shirt for Kurt.

"What are you doing?" Kurt finally asked, breaking the silence.

He was standing awkwardly in the doorway, eyes fixed on a point somewhere over Blaine's right shoulder.

"I need to get changed," Blaine answered, shifting uncomfortably. "These jeans are not meant to mix with water. They're chafing and it's killing me."

"Well, we can't have that," Kurt joked.

Blaine could almost see the neurons making connections inside Kurt's head – pants chafing, pants chafing around the crotch, crotches, Blaine's crotch – and looked down when he noticed Kurt blushing, hiding his own nervous smile.

"I just meant-"

Blaine shook his head.

"Don't worry about it."

Kurt's gaze finally met his eyes, and he looked flushed and anxious and kind of almost excited. Once again, Blaine had a sudden flash of Kurt – that amazing boy, right there – sprawled out on the bed beneath him. Letting out breathy sighs and moans and all those wonderful little noises that Blaine could elicit from him with just a press of his lips or a curled, caressing finger...

"Um. There are shirts in here, if you want one," Blaine motioned to the wardrobe beside him. "Or t-shirts, in the second drawer over there." He motioned to the dresser his shorts still lay on the floor beside.

"Okay."

Blaine didn't miss the way Kurt's eyes flicked swiftly down to his chest and then back up to his face, nor the way his cheeks grew impossibly pinker at the action.

"Right."

Neither boy moved, and the tension between them was palpable in the silent room.

It was stupid, really, because every other step forward in their relationship had happened so naturally. This wasn't exactly an unexpected progression either – it was summer, after all, and it was inevitable that more skin would start to be shown. In all honesty, Blaine had never been so nervous about taking his shirt off before today. It wasn't like he had anything to be embarrassed about, but today it was just that... well... it was Kurt. There. Watching and looking and maybe even judging. And, for some unfathomable reason, that suddenly made this a big deal.

Okay, so it wasn't exactly unfathomable. The reason this was a big deal was because every time some new bit of skin was shown it kind of served to acknowledge its existence. And sure, Kurt had a chest too, and it was probably more or less the same as Blaine's – same angles, same shapes, same features – but now Blaine had decisively displayed his chest (and, God, that sounded as if it were some sort of advertisement), it had allowed Kurt to give up any extrapolating that he himself might have done and provided him with an accurate image to work with. In his head. If Kurt ever thought of stuff like that.

"I love you," Blaine said inexplicably. He quickly turned away, embarrassed, and bent to pick up his shorts, lingering by the bathroom as he stole a glance at Kurt.

Fortunately, his boyfriend seemed unperturbed by the sudden announcement, and had in fact taken a few steps forward, fully inside Blaine's bedroom now instead of just hovering by the doorway. As Blaine watched, Kurt nudged the door closed, giving them a sudden sense of true privacy.

"I know you do," Kurt told him, moving a little closer, but still separated from Blaine by the double bed in the centre of the room. "That's not why I'm- I mean, that isn't why I don't want to... take my shirt off. Or whatever."

The last bit was muttered in a low voice, almost lost beneath the sound of a car pulling up in the driveway. In the back of his mind, Blaine noted that his and Kurt's privacy would be short-lived now that his father was home.

"That's okay," Blaine replied, not quite knowing what to say, his heartbeat speeding up as he took in Kurt's expression. He was terrified of getting this wrong, terrified of saying too much, of appearing too desperate or too forceful. It was so vitally important to Blaine that Kurt knew he could trust him – that first and foremost they were friends, confidants, and that all this complicated boyfriend stuff came second.

But this was one of those moments, one of those things that was insignificant to their friendship, but so extremely important to the other half of their relationship. The half that was more stressful, yes, but also more rewarding. A lot more rewarding.

"I love you," Blaine repeated, blinking long and hard before continuing. "And I don't just mean that I love your mind or your voice or something. I love all of you, Kurt. The bits you show to everyone everyday and the bits you try to hide. The mental stuff and the... physical stuff, too. You're incredible."

Kurt's gaze stuttered a little and he blinked quickly, eyes doing another almost imperceptible jump down to Blaine's chest then back up. A reluctant half-smile curled on Kurt's lips.

"Thank you," he said simply.

Blaine nodded, smiling back, and ducked into the bathroom.

...

The sound of voices in the living was echoing upstairs loudly when Blaine re-entered his bedroom, showered and dry and wearing only the shorts he'd found earlier.

Kurt was waiting for him on his bed, legs crossed as he sat in the centre, gaze hovering on the photos that adorned the bookcase against the wall.

"You found a shirt?" Blaine asked, taking in the light, button-down, short-sleeved shirt Kurt had swapped his wet one for.

"Yeah, it was one of the ones from your wardrobe. I hope that's okay."

"It's fine."

Blaine wasted no more time lingering by the bathroom door and got on the bed to crawl over to Kurt's side. He instantly grabbed his boyfriend's hand, happy for the contact, almost craving it, and smiling at the way all the tension in the room seemed to dissipate at the feel of Kurt's fingers entwined with his.

"I was thinking," Kurt began, turning to face Blaine. "About what you said, how you love all of me."

Kurt fell silent, and Blaine gave his hand an encouraging squeeze.

"And?"

"And I don't quite understand how that works. I mean, you don't know all of me yet. You certainly haven't met every single side of me, and you haven't really seen all of me either-"

"I've extrapolated," Blaine interrupted.

"What?"

"Everything that I don't already know for sure, I sort of... make up. Based on what I already know. Like, before I met Finn, I'd already formed a picture of him in my mind based off everything you said and the way you said it. And then when I met him I was more or less right. My ideas needed a few adjustments, but essentially I had down what he was like before I even knew him. I do the same thing with other stuff."

Kurt's eyes were narrowed, but he seemed genuinely curious, if not a little bit demure, when he asked, "What other stuff?"

Blaine shrugged.

"You. Everything about you. How you look and you how sound. How you react to certain situations and certain people. I used to imagine what it'd be like to kiss you or to hold you properly. Or, you know, to touch you in a certain way, to see or hear or feel certain... things."

"What things?" Kurt pushed, and now he was definitely doing it on purpose, his eyes wide and innocent but the little curve of his lips betraying how much he liked hearing this, how much he enjoyed hearing Blaine of all people admit to thinking about stuff like this.

"Lately, I've mostly just been all caught up in kissing you. Kissing your neck or your cheek or your ear or your lips. And those- uh, noises... that you make when I get the right spot. And I've also been thinking about your- your skin. Because I know what your face and neck and shoulders are like, and your hands and feet and stuff. But I keep-" he broke off, eyes darting up to meet Kurt's. "Do you really want me to say it?"

Kurt grinned.

"Yes, please."

"I keep imagining further down than your neck. Your chest, I guess. I mean, I get that it's going to look like any other guy's chest, but I just want to _know_. I want to _see_ and _touch_ and _taste_ and-"

Blaine looked away, blushing now, positive he'd said too much.

This was how he and Kurt worked, and he knew it was good to talk so much, good to communicate so openly and to be so comfortable with it all, but honestly! Here he was, sitting on his bed, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, parents and extended family all the way downstairs, and yet all he was doing with his boyfriend was talking. It seemed like a waste. Especially if, as he was beginning to suspect, Kurt was not as against this particular step forward as he'd been worried he might be.

"I love you," Kurt said, and it wasn't in a sudden little burst like how Blaine had been saying it earlier. It was slow and drawn out and it meant something. It was said like it was a promise of some sort, like it was a revelation. "I don't want you to have to extrapolate."

"I don't mind extrapolating," Blaine replied quickly. "Really, it's probably a good exercise for my brain, you know, like how when you're a kid and they make you do those ink-blot things and you have to say what it is, even though really it isn't anything at all because it's just-"

Blaine's words were cut off when Kurt's lips pressed against his, kissing him softly but with intent, purpose. Both boys were still sitting, but Blaine could feel Kurt shift as he uncrossed his legs and moved to kneel, freeing his hand from Blaine's as he lifted it to press against Blaine's cheek, fingertips burying in his damp hair. Cautiously, Blaine lifted a hand to Kurt's waist, quickly bringing the other up when Kurt pushed harder, closer, clearly wanting something.

Kurt moved his lips away from Blaine's, kissing across his cheek, down his jaw and then up his neck to his ear, where he pulled away for long enough to whisper, "Lie down."

Needless to say, Blaine obeyed. Quickly.

Kurt fell heavily against his chest, and then they were suddenly very close and Blaine was suddenly very conscious of being half naked, but God this feeling of Kurt on top of him – no longer just hovering above him uncertainly like a separate entity, but truly pressed against him - made Blaine gasp. Or perhaps that was Kurt's hand's fault as it trailed down his neck, skimmed across his shoulder, and then settled over his heart.

The feel of skin on skin was so much closer here, and impossibly Blaine thought of holding hands but better, because this was like Kurt holding his heart in his palm. But then Kurt's lips were back on his, kissing with that same insistent intensity, and even half-formed, wild thoughts were scattered from Blaine's mind.

Mercifully, Kurt freed Blaine again after what could have been a second or a century, kissing down his chin and neck, then pulling back to nuzzle softly against him, curling into his chest.

"I like you like this," Kurt murmured, and Blaine groaned at the feel of warm breath against his sternum. "All soft and warm and naked."

Blaine laughed, considered pointing out that he wasn't really fully naked yet, and then decided not to, and settled with wrapping his arms tighter around his boyfriend, pulling him closer.

"I like _you_ like this," he mimicked. "Wearing my clothes. It makes me feel like a real boyfriend."

Kurt laughed, and wow, that felt _amazing_.

"No, a real boyfriend would be trying to get me _out_ of his clothes. Unless he was someone else's boyfriend. In which case he'd probably be trying to get me out of his room."

"No way. Even if you weren't his boyfriend, any sane guy would be doing his all to keep you right here. Not that you'd let him if he wasn't me. Right?"

Kurt laughed again. And yep. That was still pretty wow.

"Right."

They were silent for a moment, Blaine's eyes fluttering shut as Kurt started tracing along his ribs, running his fingers in the dips between them and up and down, bumping over the contours.

"You know, I wouldn't object if you _did_ try to get me out of this shirt," Kurt finally whispered.

Blaine's eyes opened again.

For a moment, he considered being dapper. He considered playing the good, understanding, totally-not-horny-for-Kurt guy and arguing, saying, 'no, no, not until you're ready.' But then that vision (_Kurt's lips too red, his skin too-pink, his desperate breaths too hard and too fast_) flashed before his eyes again and nope. Screw the dapper guy. This was an invitation that Blaine simply couldn't refuse.

Unwrapping his arms from around Kurt and dropping them to the bed, Blaine pushed himself up onto his elbows, making Kurt slide off him a little. From this position, Kurt was below him, now clutching Blaine's sides as he peered up, bright blue eyes smiling.

Blaine leant down and kissed him hard, twisting to get the angle right and then making Kurt gasp as he pushed closer still, one hand lifting to grab Kurt's arm and tug him higher, nearer- _there_. Kurt let out a desperate sort of moan and Blaine grinned at the noise, letting the kiss soften and slow down as he gently rolled them over so that Kurt was properly beneath him.

Opening his eyes for a moment, Blaine pulled back to look. And yep, things were going well so far. Kurt's lips were red and swollen from the rough kiss, and his eyes were, far from wide and innocent like usual, almost intensely narrowed, in what would have been a frown if it weren't so incredibly sexy.

"_Kurt_-" Blaine groaned, and that was really all he could manage, because those eyes and that look and the feel as Kurt wound his arms around Blaine's naked torso, curling up to grip his shoulders and pull him closer again...

They kissed more, the desperate, fast, rough feel back, but Blaine was more focussed on another task, one hand holding him up while the other stroked along Kurt's arm, coming to rest at his neck where his shirt – _Blaine's_ shirt – was buttoned up. Blaine pulled the first button undone, and Kurt made no reaction other than to move one hand down to Blaine's waist, gripping his hip hard as his kisses pushed closer and harder.

Blaine undid the next button, and still Kurt only clutched him tighter so, emboldened, he rushed down the next three, shocked into stillness for a moment when he dumbly realised that he'd reached the bottom of the shirt and, if he wanted, he could just push it aside and have the entire expanse of his boyfriend's chest to admire.

"Wait," Blaine murmured against Kurt's lips, but Kurt wouldn't let up, both hands suddenly snapping to Blaine's face to tug him in as close as he could possibly get.

Blaine's head whirled at the press of Kurt's tongue against the roof of his mouth, but then his imagined vision returned and he pulled back, hard, forcing Kurt to let him go.

"Kurt, I want to _see _you," he said, almost angry, realising the moment he opened his eyes that this is exactly what Kurt had been trying to avoid. "This isn't just about feeling it, Kurt," Blaine pointed out, trying to explain. "I want see what you look like. My extrapolator covers all six senses, you know. I have to make sure I have every one ticked off."

"Even smell?" Kurt asked, going for light-hearted and teasing but mostly sounding nervous.

"_Everything_," Blaine emphasised.

As Kurt hoisted a put-off expression onto his face and huffed out a breath, Blaine could tell he was uncomfortable, that this whole sitting back and looking thing had not been a part of his plan. Clearly, Kurt had no qualms with the _idea_ of being shirtless, but being stared at seemed to be as nerve-wracking for him as it had been for Blaine. It was this stupid, frustrating _tension_ – the pressure that the word 'boyfriends' put upon them, like it was some sort of role they had to fulfil or a part they had to play – that was the problem. Why couldn't they just be themselves, just Kurt and Blaine, and understand that that was enough?

Blaine let out a small, disappointed noise as Kurt's arms slithered off his neck and fell onto the mattress. Kurt smiled a little at the sound but turned his head away, avoiding Blaine's eyes.

"I don't want you to look," he admitted. "Not when you're so... tanned and muscly and perfect. I'm just going to disappoint you."

Blaine was struck with a sudden urge to laugh at the very idea of ever being disappointed by his boyfriend, but instead moved off Kurt so he could lie beside him on the bed, no longer having to hold himself up.

"Never," Blaine vowed, keeping his hands to himself as he finally looked Kurt in the eyes.

Because this was important. God, if Kurt didn't get it now then he might never understand. And if Kurt didn't understand – didn't get that for Heaven's sake Blaine _loved_ him, all of him, all the time, no matter what – then he wasn't ready for this to happen.

"I love you, remember?" Blaine said again. "All of you."

Kurt looked down, reserved and awkward, then up again, meeting his eyes.

"I know. I'm just-"

"Don't be."

There was a beat of silence as they held each other's gaze.

"Okay."

Smiling and leaning in to kiss Kurt's lips lightly, chastely, tenderly, Blaine let one of his hands settle on Kurt's hip. He glanced at Kurt's face, checking he was all right with this. Then he tugged a little, gently pulling just the bottom of the shirt away to reveal Kurt's stomach – creamy skin, taut and firm but not tight and, when Blaine reached out a thumb to stroke across it, so, _so_ soft.

Checking Kurt's expression again – and now his eyes were closed, breaths steady, calm – Blaine looked back down, shifting his entire hand onto the exposed skin and then slowly moving it up, pushing aside the shirt as he went. The impossibly perfect skin just kept going on and on, and Blaine resisted the desperate urge to lean in and kiss it, not wanting to push this too far. His hand eventually reached Kurt's collarbone, and there it paused for a second before moving down again, lifting to make his touch more of a caress. No longer exploratory, this was aiming to pleasure. Blaine was rewarded when goosebumps erupted under his fingertips, and he leaned in again to kiss Kurt's lips lightly, making him let out a content sigh.

"You're beautiful," Blaine whispered against his lips, before kissing them again, mostly because he couldn't not.

"Boys!"

If Blaine could've picked a way for this moment to end, it wouldn't have been like this. In fact, if he could have picked fifty ways, or even a hundred, this wouldn't have made the list.

Blaine rolled over to look at his father, standing in his bedroom door.

"You need to come downstairs to spend time with your family, Blaine," he said. Or ordered. Blaine was having trouble telling the difference these days.

Still next to him on the bed, shirt gaping open, Blaine felt Kurt wriggle uncomfortably, pressing himself against Blaine's side to hide his exposed chest.

"We'll be down in a minute," he replied to his Dad.

Blaine glared at the door, left obnoxiously wide open, as his father disappeared down the hall.

And yeah, this wasn't exactly ideal.

Except, really it wasn't all that bad. Kurt was still beside him, pressed against his side and _huh_. So that's what skin on skin felt like. It was pretty good, in Blaine's opinion. Very good, actually.

He turned to look at Kurt, sighing out a laugh when he was met with his wide eyes, utterly mortified at what had just happened.

"Your Dad just walked in on us making out," Kurt said under his breath. "Our first time without shirts on will forever be ruined by that. I am never going to be able to look back and remember this moment with any feeling other than utter embarrassment."

Blaine chuckled, bumping his nose against Kurt's simply because he could.

"I bet I could change your mind," he murmured, sliding an arm around his boyfriend's side and pulling him closer.

"I bet you could," Kurt agreed.

And then he somehow managed to shift _closer_ so that his entire front was pushed flush against Blaine's side, and that just felt...

Kurt inhaled suddenly, his breath stuttering out again a second later. The sound made Blaine swallow hard, and he could _feel_ Kurt's heart hammering against him, _feel_ him breathing in and out, _feel_ the hard prick of a nipple against the back of his ribcage and _God_.

Yep. It pretty much felt like that.

"We should do this again," Blaine finally managed to say, the words tumbling out quickly and gracelessly, followed by a shallow laugh because Kurt practically _growled_ in response and that sound vibrated through his whole body, right down to his stomach where it pressed against Blaine's hip.

"Definitely," he replied. "Preferably without your Dad intruding."

"Or yours," Blaine added.

Kurt grimaced, pulling back.

"Why would you do that, Blaine? I was just thinking about kissing you and you had to bring up my _Dad_? Urgh."

Blaine smiled as Kurt pulled away from his side, and it turned into a grin as Kurt sat up and crossed his arms.

"I'm cold," he muttered, glaring at Blaine. "And you're lying on my shirt."

"My shirt, actually," Blaine reminded him, rolling over and sitting up too so Kurt could snatch the shirt off the bed and pull it on quickly.

Blaine slid off the bed and moved over to his dresser, finding a clean t-shirt and pulling it on. He smiled to himself a little as he rolled his shoulders, letting the shirt settle, thinking back for a moment at what had just happened.

That was a big deal, after all, at least on the boyfriend scale. And yes, it was awkward and tense and everything, but it had, ultimately, been quite a successful endeavour. His extrapolator was certainly appreciating the update, at least.

Turning to look back at Kurt, still sitting on the bed, Blaine took in the sight. Mostly, Kurt still looked mortified at having been caught making out almost-shirtless with his boyfriend by said boyfriend's father and disgruntled that the very same boyfriend had brought his _own_ father into the mix, as if this situation wasn't bad enough already. But, beneath the mortification, Blaine thought Kurt still looked a little flushed, a little messy, a little ruffled.

He smiled at the sight.

Because, okay, maybe Alaina was right and he kind of sucked at pet ownership. But, unless he was very much mistaken, he was getting pretty damn good at this boyfriend thing.


	7. First Friday Night Dinner

**A/N: As of tomorrow, I plan on changing my pen-name to _padfoot's prose_. Do not fear, it will still be me! I've just decided that, after eight years, Jg Rox just isn't right for me anymore.**

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><p><strong><em><span>Something New:<span>_**

**a story of Klaine 'firsts'**

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><p><em>Don't forget to submit a 'first' for me to write!<em>

_This chapter was rendered AU by the startling revelation that Kurt and Blaine have "not been granting our hands visas to travel south of the equator". I'm sorry._

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><p><strong>~First Friday Night Dinner, prompted by AStarWithNoSky and Mimi77<strong>

It never ceased to amaze Blaine just how much of a difference the smallest things could make. They'd talked about it in biology once (on one of those inevitable tangents that classes go off on when the teacher is actually interested in the subject): how enormous impacts can result from even the tiniest of changes.

It had all started when a bee had somehow gotten into the lab, sending the boys into chaos. It was Dalton, after all. Amidst the cries of "Kill it!" "No, run from it!" "I'm allergic to bee-stings – help!" their teacher (a stereotypical scientist with the hair, glasses and lab coat to match), had calmly opened a window and watched with an amused expression as the bee buzzed outside, glad to escape from the swatting arms and ducking heads.

"Who can tell me why I didn't kill it?" The teacher had asked, and maybe it was meant to rhetorical but it was treated as philosophical and so the discussion began. A discussion that covered everything from ethics to animal rights to the definition of sentiency, before finally heading down the intended track of why, exactly, even the smallest creatures are important

Because, without bees, some pollen wouldn't be spread. Without pollen being spread, flowers wouldn't grow. Without flowers growing, a million other organisms would cease to exist. Plus, as one boy had oh-so-intelligently added, there'd be no honey. And that would suck.

So Blaine was unsurprised – in a roundabout way – when Kurt took a good half hour to impress upon him the importance of every single moment of their upcoming Friday Night Dinner. With capitals, apparently. Blaine wondered if there were t-shirts and a website too. However, he neglected to mention this errant thought to Kurt, whose expression was so serious that he'd probably spontaneously combust if he knew that Blaine's mind was on anything but the task at hand.

"If Carole offers you seconds, you absolutely have to accept, even if you're not hungry. You're allowed to not finish all of your second serving, but you have to finish everything on your plate originally. Now, I know you're not allergic to anything-"

"I'm allergic to penicillin!"

Kurt shot Blaine his best bitch face.

"As I was saying, I know you're not allergic to anything _edible_, so you have no excuses for not eating what you're given, right? We're having steak tomorrow, and there'll also be potatoes, carrots and probably beans," Kurt's expression was sour as he added, "It's a compromise meal."

Blaine nodded, wriggling his toes under the table as the feeling began to seep out of his left leg. He resisted a shiver at the pins-and-needles sensation that the movement caused, instead maintaining his (hopefully) interested expression as Kurt continued.

"So you're fine with all of those foods, I hope. Now, as for drinks, Dad will probably offer you soda, but you are not allowed to say yes. You can have water, like me, that's it. No matter what Finn drinks, you, Dad and I are having water, understand?"

"Drink water," Blaine repeated. "Not soda."

"Good, now..."

Somewhere in the edge of his mind, Blaine was aware that Kurt was still talking. The words were washing over him, and without actually listening he could quite easily let himself appreciate the wonderful sound of his boyfriend's voice. The strange, almost exotic lilt it had, the way it shaped words like 'onion' and 'mushroom' and 'mustard' so they sounded anything but boring.

Nodding absent-mindedly to Kurt's tirade, Blaine focussed his attention on the task at hand – restoring the feeling to his left leg.

The uncomfortable tingles were persisting – worsening, even – and he bit the inside of his cheek as he shoved his foot forwards a little on the Lima Bean's linoleum floor. This effort to restore feeling was unsuccessful, and so Blaine crossed his legs, giving his left one a sharp kick with his right heel, hoping that would make a difference. It didn't. Smiling a little as he nodded more vigorously at whatever Kurt was saying, Blaine re-crossed his legs the other way, left on top of right this time, and tried jigging his right leg so his left one bounced around on top. It made no difference, and kind of made him need to pee. He stopped.

"Wait, say that again," he said, zoning back in to Kurt's monologue for a moment.

"You have to listen, Blaine!" Kurt chided, only half-joking, before repeating whatever he'd said, this time with heavy inflection on 'go away'.

What needed to go away?

The sensation of bugs crawling over the skin of Blaine's left leg for a start, but something else very clearly had to _go_ _away_ during tonight's dinner. Maybe he had to go away. Maybe there was a designated bathroom time, and he needed to ensure that he went then because it was absolutely taboo to excuse himself in the middle of the meal. Maybe Finn had to go away early, but that didn't mean that it was okay for Blaine to do the same. Maybe Blaine should've just _listened_ in the first place and not have to worry with all this speculation.

"Um, Kurt, can you just hold on a second?"

Kurt broke off, and Blaine took the opportunity to move his left leg properly, stretching it right out as _finally_ the sensation started to return to it. Then Blaine felt his toe – the feeling in it blissfully restored – touch something. And it wasn't really so much of a touch as a, well, caress, because his leg was stretched out as far as it could go, and really all he was doing was flexing his foot. And it wasn't so much something that he touched as someone. Kurt, actually. Kurt's thigh, to be more precise. Kurt's upper-thigh. In fact, so high up on Kurt's upper-thigh that it really might as well have been his ass.

Yeah, so Blaine was caressing Kurt's ass. With his foot. In the middle of a crowded cafe, midway through a conversation on Friday Night Dinner etiquette.

Blaine suspected that this type of behaviour would not fit in said code of etiquette.

Then he remembered that Kurt's ass, which he was _still freaking touching_, was actually attached to the rest of Kurt, and he remembered that the rest of Kurt was still there, just opposite him at the table, mouth slightly open as he stared with an expression partway between perplexed and... something else entirely.

Quickly – but still about a minute and half too late – Blaine pulled his foot back.

"Sorry," he muttered, fixing his eyes on the table. "I was stretching."

But the excuse sounded lame to him – even him, who knew it was true – and he felt his cheeks heat up because, seriously, stretching? What sort of idiot would believe that?

"Right," Kurt said. "Okay."

Apparently, that kind of idiot.

Then they fell silent. Staring at the table. Awkward. Awkward in a way that was completely unprecedented, because Kurt and Blaine just didn't get awkward. They both had so much to say and discuss and debate that never before had a silence quite like this one descended upon them. Briefly (very briefly) Blaine wondered if he should touch Kurt's ass again just to get rid of awkwardness. But that probably wouldn't be a good idea.

"Um..." Kurt slid his chair out a bit, as if foreseeing Blaine's plan and trying to get out of range. "We should go. Back to my place, I mean. For dinner." He checked his watch, still not looking up. "Carole said it will be ready by six-thirty, and it's almost six."

"Okay," Blaine replied.

And, still silent, still awkward, still not so much as glancing at one another, they stood and headed out of the cafe, muttering goodbyes before heading to their respective cars where, Blaine could only assume on Kurt's behalf, they both sat in the driver's seat for a long moment, staring at their hands resting on the steering wheel, feeling distinctly uncomfortable with everything that had just happened.

Because he had just touched Kurt's ass. His _ass_. That meant something, surely. And yet he was also just about to head out for a Friday Night Dinner. With capitals. And that meant something too. The problem, Blaine decided, was that he wasn't quite sure what either of them meant and whether or not one meant more than the other and whether he should have apologised more to Kurt or offered to talk about it or what. He wasn't good at this. He didn't know what the rules were, what the etiquette was. He needed a handbook: _Dating Kurt Hummel for Dummies_. Yes, that would definitely be useful.

Heaving a sigh, Blaine started the car, glancing in his wing mirror and watching as Kurt's Navigator passed behind him. Then he pulled out of his spot and followed Kurt out onto the road. Watching the back of his car – his ass, as it were – the whole way to Kurt's house. And no, the irony was not lost on Blaine.

They both pulled in to Kurt's driveway, and while Blaine wasted a few seconds checking the handbrake was on and turning off the air-con, Kurt stopped his car immediately and got out, approaching Blaine's door.

"Are you coming?" Kurt asked, peering in through Blaine's window.

Blaine nodded, opening his door and making to step out.

But his seatbelt was still on and Blaine hadn't realised until too late, so instead of gracefully getting out of the car, he sort of rolled sideways in his seat, grabbing desperately for the steering wheel so he could pull himself upright again. Beside him, the sound of a muffled laugh made him look up, midway through his ninja-like efforts to regain his balance, and seeing the expression on his boyfriend's face made him lose his balance all over again.

Because God, Kurt was _smiling_. And it didn't matter if the world was ending or if things were awkward, because no matter what, Kurt's smile could fix it all. At least, Blaine thought it could. In his professional and totally objective opinion.

"Want some help?" Kurt asked, reaching out to push Blaine back into the seat.

The motion brought Kurt to Blaine's side, one hand on his shoulder and the other on his knee. Which meant they were close – closer than they'd been at their table in the Lima Bean, separated by that mile-long distance that they always put between themselves in public – and, with a quick glance over his shoulder, Kurt leant in to rest his forehead against Blaine's, eyes fluttering closed and lips parted slightly to suck in a deep breath.

It was warm and tingly and wonderful, and it was so rare that Blaine was allowed to be this close to his boyfriend that he felt more than a little overwhelmed by it. Kurt filled his vision, and what with his hands Blaine's arm and leg, it seemed as if he was everywhere. It made Blaine feel exposed, as if Kurt could read his every motion, his every thought, and he blurted the first thing on his mind out before he could help it.

"I wasn't listening to you talking about this dinner."

"I know," Kurt replied. "Don't worry. You'll be fine." He pulled back a little, eyes opening to meet Blaine's. "Just don't try to touch my ass again. That wouldn't go over well with my Dad."

Blaine smiled, blushing a little.

"Okay. I'll try not to."

Kurt was smiling properly now, and the hand on Blaine's knee gave a slight squeeze.

"But you can see why I'd have trouble resisting," Blaine continued, emboldened by the squeeze. "You do have a great ass."

Now it was Kurt's turn to blush, but he seemed to be feeling brave too, and he raised his eyebrows, lifting the hand from Blaine's knee and reaching around to where his seatbelt was still buckled up. He exaggerated the movement as he pressed on the button to undo the seatbelt, hand lingering, fingers reaching, palm brushing almost imperceptibly against the back of Blaine's jeans.

"So do you," he said, and then pressed a quick kiss to Blaine's forehead and skipped a few paces back.

Blaine had to focus much more than usual on arranging his feet and legs so that they were capable of holding his weight as he got out of the car. His balance was still a bit iffy though, and so it was completely necessary for him to reach out for Kurt and wrap an arm around his middle. Completely necessary.

...

All through dinner, Blaine was having trouble focussing. It wasn't because of the food or Finn's apparent inability to chew with his mouth closed. It was because of Kurt. Right beside him. Chattering away about who knows what, acting totally innocent, totally ignorant, as his hand stroked up and down Blaine's leg. _Stroked_.

It was maddening.

Maddening – the way Kurt's fingers ventured all the way up from almost Blaine's knee to almost his belt, absolutely not lifting the hard press of contact for any part of their journey. Maddening – the way that, as dinner slowly drew to an end, Kurt seemed to loosen up or lose focus or something, because his fingers started moving less and less far down Blaine's leg, and really just started drawing little patterns against his thigh. And upper thigh. And-

"Blaine, how would you like another bit of steak?"

Blaine felt Kurt freeze beside him, his fingers stopping – and why on earth would they _stop_? – midway along their latest path up the side of Blaine's leg. Clearly, this was an important moment. Blaine wished he'd paid attention to Kurt's instructions earlier.

"Uh..."

Finn was staring, gaping, as Blaine's eyes flickered nervously between Carole (smiling kindly as she held out a tray of meat), Burt (expression gruff, as usual) and Kurt (hand now positively _grasping_ so high up on Blaine's thigh that- yeah, it was his ass, really).

Blaine knew that Kurt had said something about this, that there was some sort of procedure that absolutely had to be followed in this scenario. But so much had happened after that, and even the small snippets of Kurt's instructions that Blaine had listened to were vague memories, as if it were a discussion that had happened years ago, instead of a mere hour earlier.

"Er..." Blaine was still stalling, and this time his gaze settled on Kurt, silently begging for an answer.

Kurt nodded in encouragement.

"Yes?" Blaine tried apprehensively, preparing to backpedal desperately if that was the wrong answer.

Kurt's hand loosened its grip, giving a quick little cascade of fingertip brushes as he grinned at Blaine, who resisted sighing in relief.

"Yes, please," he repeated with more certainty, smiling up at Carole.

She beamed back and lifted another piece of steak onto his plate, moving around to give Kurt a piece too and then Finn a larger chunk.

"Don't feel like you have to finish all that, sweetie," Carole said to Blaine as she served Burt and then herself extra meat. "I know it's an awful lot."

Blaine didn't reply, all his attention concentrated on keeping his expression blank and friendly as Kurt's strokes recommenced on his leg. Ass. Whatever.

Kurt leant closer in the guise of reaching for the mustard just as Blaine lifted a forkful of meat to his mouth. He could feel Kurt's breath against his cheek, feel it stuttering as he laughed lightly, and Blaine took a careful bite. He let out a choked moan, embarrassingly loud, when Kurt's hand gave another, very purposeful squeeze. One that wasn't communicating congratulations at having successfully navigated his first Friday Night Dinner or anything of the sort. It was an ass squeeze. Plain and simple.

Finn started at the noise, his fork clanging noisily to the floor. Burt frowned, staring hard at Blaine. Carole looked concerned, head tilted sideways, eyebrows drawn.

"This is great!" Blaine said with enthusiasm.

"Isn't it?" Kurt whispered before pulling away with a wicked smile.

...

In retrospect, Blaine couldn't remember much of his first Friday Night Dinner at all. It was strange how such an important occasion had gone by, yet hardly any of it seemed to have stuck in his memory. Unsurprisingly, it was the little things – the way Kurt had grinned, the way he had spoken, the way he had squeezed and stroked and caressed – that Blaine remembered later.

The smallest things did, after all, always tend to make the biggest difference.


	8. First Fight As A Couple

**A/N: You might start reading this and think that it's inappropriate but I absolutely promise that it isn't. It just takes a really long time to get to the punchline.**

**Thank you to MissMarauder93 who gave me a bit of advice on how to tackle this prompt - I hope you're pleased with the result! Also, an honourable mention to T and melody, who completely, without a doubt inspired this chapter.**

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><p><strong><em><span>Something New:<span>_**

**a story of Klaine 'firsts'**

* * *

><p><em>Don't forget to submit a 'first' for me to write!<em>

* * *

><p><strong>~First fight as a couple, prompted by sosha20 and MissMarauder93<strong>

It wasn't often that Finn arrived home to the sound of yelling.

As a general rule, Burt and Carole didn't fight – maybe it was because they were so in love or maybe it was because they knew what things were worth tearing families apart over and what things weren't, Finn wasn't sure – and Kurt and Blaine usually did their utmost to be absolutely silent and stay below the radar. Finn suspected it was to disguise the fact that, ever since Kurt had moved back to McKinley, Blaine was at the house _a lot_. Like, pretty much all the time. And maybe (probably) if Burt realised that, he'd be less keen to say, "Sure, come on in, Blaine, Kurt's in his room," every time the blazer-clad boy turned up at the front door.

The point is that Finn, usually a reasonably difficult person to catch off guard (unless someone was throwing something at him, trying to trip him or jumping out at him and screaming "Boo!", all of which Puck had done in the last two weeks to huge success), was unexpectedly shocked when he ascended the stairs, listening to the rising voices coming from above.

"No, Blaine, I don't want to do it that way!"

"Why not, Kurt? What's wrong with that way?"

"Nothing's _wrong _with it, Blaine. It's just that we _always_ do it that way, and I really think it's high time we tried something new!"

"We do it that way because it works! We decided, remember? The very first time we ever did it, we decided that that was the best way for us. You can't just go back on that, Kurt! I mean, I've gotten used to-"

"Used to what? Always being on top?"

Finn's eyes widened at the last word, and he swore under his breath.

_Oh, God, no. Sweet Holy Mother of Grilled Cheesus, please, no. No, no, no, no. No! This conversation could not be happening._

Instinctively, Finn lifted his hands to block his ears, trying to shut out the voices as Blaine shouted something, obviously angered by Kurt's comment. Glancing down at his left foot, poised above the next step, Finn quickly drew it back, remembering the creak that always alerted his Mum to the fact that he was sneaking downstairs for another scoop of ice cream. Both feet now on the ground, Finn risked moving his hands away a little, hoping that the yelling would have stopped.

"Yes, all right! I'll admit it – I don't want to change. Being on top is what I'm used to, Kurt! That's how I did it every time before I met you, so I'm sorry if you don't like it, but it's just what I always do!"

"I changed for you, Blaine! I did things that I was uncomfortable with – that whole 'sexy faces' thing, watching you make out with Rachel while you dealt with your crisis of sexuality? Do you think any of that was easy for me?"

"Of course I don't, Kurt, but this is different-"

_Nope. Still fighting._

Finn covered his ears again, considering his next move.

He had two choices really – stay or go. He could go back downstairs, out the door, get in his car and drive back to Burt's shop, hanging around there with his stepdad until they both headed home. Or he could go the rest of the way upstairs, lock himself in his room, plug in his headphones and wait for the argument to end.

There was no question about which choice was more tempting, but running away to the shop felt like a betrayal of Kurt. It made sense for Finn to be here, at least so he could warn Kurt and Blaine if Burt came home. Because, seriously, if _Finn_ was uncomfortable with this argument, then Burt would definitely have something to say about it. And even though sometimes Finn thought Blaine seemed like he liked attention a bit too much, he didn't want him to be shot. Besides, Kurt would kill him if he let that happen, and Finn definitely didn't want _himself_ to be shot.

So, taking a deep breath and letting his hands drop to his side, Finn lunged forward two steps, skipping the creaky one, and hurried up the last few, trying to block the ongoing argument as he focussed on making it to the landing.

"I understand that doing something different can be a good thing, but why mess with a system that works, Kurt? We've done it this way heaps of times before, here and in my dorm, and even in David's room when he'd let us..."

"Which is exactly why I want to try it the other way! Blaine, we have been doing it this way since _before we were going out_ – don't you want to just see if we can make it work the other way? I mean, aren't you just a little bit curious about what it's like?"

Finn closed his eyes, deciding he was far too mature to keep blocking his ears. Besides, the yelling was too loud to be disguised by hands. Only Finn's new, expensive pair of headphones would be able to shut this out.

As Blaine's response ("No, Kurt, I'm not curious! It's not like I haven't tried it before, you know! At home and sometimes when someone else forces me to go on the bottom, but I just don't _like_ it that way. I'm not as good that way!") evoked a low, cringing whimper from Finn, he opened his eyes and turned to start down the hallway, hoping to make a dash for his room and shut out this conversation as soon as he possibly could. But, before he could make it two steps, he stumbled to a halt.

Kurt's door was open, and Finn could see that there was no one inside it. Instead, his own bedroom door was closed and Kurt and Blaine's yells were coming from inside. They were _in his room_.

Finn felt his head spin, and swayed on the spot, feeling as if he was about to faint.

Because, yeah, Kurt and Blaine were gay, and most of the time he was cool with that. After the whole thing about living in the same room as Kurt and then the thing with Sam, Finn knew that it was important for him to learn to deal with stuff like this, to take all the weird things his brother did in his stride and try not to let them bother him, but _woah._ This was not cool. At all.

Seriously – _in his room_? That was just not on. Surely Burt would understand that?

This wasn't a case of Finn saying and doing the wrong thing, he thought, because, even if it were Mike and Tina or Puck and Lauren or Brittney and Artie, he still wouldn't be okay with this. Finn's room was _his_ space, his _private_ space, and yeah, sometimes he invited Kurt and Blaine in to play Xbox with him, but this was just a complete invasion of privacy.

Besides, where was Finn supposed to go?

He thought back wistfully to the time, only a few minutes ago, when he'd been outside in his car, blissfully unaware of _this_ going on in his room. His _bedroom_.

God, they were probably using his bed. On his sheets. Knocking over his bedside lamp. Laughing at the screensaver on his computer. Staring at the posters on his wall.

The faint feeling came back and Finn closed his eyes again, reaching out to grab the wall to steady himself.

From inside his room, Finn listened to Kurt's tone changing as he evidently tried a new tactic.

"Look, Blaine, it's not that I don't like being on the bottom. Really, it isn't. I just... sometimes I just wish I could try it on top, just to see what it's like. I mean, you're always so good, and maybe- maybe I'd be better on top. You never know until you try it, right?"

"Kurt, I _want_ you to get to try it, okay? I do. I just don't think it's going to be all that different. And I think if it already works this way – if we know how to do it, know how everything works and looks and stuff – then we should just stick with what we know. Maybe some other time we could try swapping, but Finn's going to be home soon, so we'll have to be quick. I mean, he didn't exactly give us permission to be in here."

"He didn't at all give us permission to be in here," Kurt scoffed, and Finn could picture him rolling his eyes.

Gratefully, Finn clung onto the picture – just Kurt's face, just Kurt alone, no weird, confusing images of sex or nakedness or all those diagrams Miss Holiday had shown the class that week. Finn's eyes still closed and his hand was still gripping the wall as he tried to shut out everything that he could hear. But to no avail...

"Finn didn't give us permission?" Blaine's tone sounded panicked. "You mean you just let us in here without even asking?"

Finn was given a brief respite as Kurt and Blaine both fell silent, the former most likely trying to hide his guilt. The moment of quiet gave Finn a chance to entertain himself with the thought of Kurt asking permission for what he and Blaine were doing-

"_Hey, Finn, do you mind if my boyfriend and I have crazy gay sex on your bed while you're away? I mean, we've already done it in every other room of the house, as well as someone called David's dormitory, and are just trying to be thorough. If it makes it any better, you can stand outside and listen to us argue about who's topping – that'd be cool too."_

Then Kurt was speaking again, and Finn was forced to admit that his head was really bad at mimicking his brother's voice.

"Okay, so I didn't exactly ask permission. But he said we could do this whenever we wanted, remember?"

Finn wracked his brains for when he had authorised Kurt use of his bedroom ever, let alone for _this_.

"I think he meant we could do it any time when he was _here_. When he could, you know, supervise and make sure we didn't mess it up. You know how he hates it when we do something wrong."

It was strange, but Finn could never remember having said any of these things to Kurt or Blaine ever. In fact, he didn't think he'd talked to them about what they did when they were alone ever. Let alone talked about supervising. Supervising! As he'd want to watch something like that!

(Porn was different. Porn had girls in it. Girls with boobs and stuff. Finn liked watching that. But even just thinking about watching dudes was... urgh.)

Besides, from what he'd heard, it sounded to Finn like Blaine had a lot more experience in all of this stuff than he did. If anyone was going to know if they were messing something up it would be Blaine, right?

Then Finn realised that he was thinking way too hard about all of this, especially considering he wasn't supposed to be hearing any of it, and he quickly pushed himself away from the wall, shaking his head to clear it.

"You mean when _I_ do something wrong," Kurt muttered, sounding bitter. "You _never_ do anything wrong. It's irritating."

Blaine sighed, and Finn could hear different noises, as if someone was moving inside room.

"Kurt, I've had a lot more practice than you. I have more experience, so it makes sense that I know how to do things right. But, if it's any consolation, I think it's sort of adorable when you mess up. You should see your face – all shocked and embarrassed. And when you _blush_..."

A small laugh – Kurt's, definitely – followed Blaine's words and, sensing that maybe the fight was over, Finn took a few cautious steps closer to his door.

"It's a good thing you like it when I blush," Kurt said, his voice lower than before, calmer. "And it's an even better thing that I'm not a sore loser. Because I know you are."

Now Blaine chuckled and murmured, "You want to know a secret? That's why I like being on top. I always win when I'm on top."

And then Finn heard Kurt gasp and one of them moaned. Worse, as he tip-toed the final step to his door, twisted the handle and pushed it open, he heard the wet sound of kissing, the slip and slide of friction, another faint, muffled noise-

"Okay, no! Wait! _Stop_!"

Finn was covering his eyes with one hand as he threw the door open fully and stepped into his bedroom, waving the other arm in the air in the hope of gaining Kurt and Blaine's attention.

A startled cry and the hurried noise of the couple separating convinced Finn to move his hand away and peek out at the scene before him. He was expecting clothes littering the floor, naked bodies ducking behind sheets, but all he saw was the two boys, fully-clothed, standing in the middle of the room. He took in Kurt's red face, Blaine's hands nervously straightening his Dalton tie, the impression on the bed where one of the boys had clearly been sitting.

"Look, Kurt," Finn began, his mind completely blank as he wondered how, exactly, he was supposed to get these guys out of his room and somehow undo the past ten minutes that he'd overheard. "I get that you're gay and I'm all for you and Blaine being a couple and stuff. But you can't do stuff like that in my room! I mean, this isn't like the lamp and the rug and the partition thingy – this isn't me over-reacting or anything. Seriously, can you two just- just not _do stuff_ in my room? I mean, your Dad isn't home, right? So go do stuff in _your_ room, on _your_ bed, and please don't yell about it at the top of your voices!"

Blaine was looking down, his expression transparently regretful and embarrassed.

"I'm so sorry, Finn," he said in a low voice. "I didn't realise you hadn't given Kurt permission-"

"Permission?" Finn yelped, all indignation. "Why would I ever give him permission to do- to do _that_ in my _room_?"

"Wait," Kurt's voice was surer than his boyfriend's had been, and despite still being flushed, his face was set. "What do you think we were doing, exactly?"

Finn felt himself go red, but barrelled on anyway, saying, "I know what you were doing! You two were having... well, obviously not _having,_ but talking about- about, y'know... sex."

Kurt blanched and Blaine looked distinctly as if he wanted very much to be swallowed by the floor. The look was not flattering on him.

"_What_?"

Instantly, Finn was on the defensive.

"I _heard_ you!" he insisted, "You were fighting about Blaine being on top and you on the bottom and I _saw_ those diagrams that Miss Holiday showed us and I _know_ that that's what- what guys like you – gay guys – I _know_ that's how you- what you... how it works for you!"

"You think we were arguing about _that_?"

Finn nodded, suddenly less certain as Kurt glared at him, the ferocity not at all decreased by his positively glowing cheeks.

"Well... weren't you?"

"No! Of course not! We've only been dating for a few weeks, how could you even think that we've- that we're..."

Kurt's voice trailed off and he shot a furtive, embarrassed look at his boyfriend. Blaine, now bright red too, noticed the look and it seemed to rouse him from his wanting-to-be-swallowed state, making him finally look up and meet Finn's confused gaze.

Blaine sighed heavily, glancing between Kurt and Finn, letting the awkward tension in the room hold for a second before quickly muttering, "We were fighting about Xbox, Finn. Top and bottom _screen_. Kurt wanted to play 'Midtown Madness'. He was sick of being on the bottom screen all the time, so he wanted to swap. I didn't want to because I've pretty much always played on the top screen and I keep looking at the wrong car if I'm on the bottom – bottom _screen,_" he emphasised. "That's what we were arguing about. That's it."

Finn was silent for a long moment. Then-

"Oh. I get it now."

"Make sense?" Kurt asked, his tone patronising.

Finn shuffled awkwardly, looking down at his feet. "Yeah, it does. Sorry for barging in on you two. I didn't mean- I mean, I thought you were... it's just that, it _sounded_ like-"

"We get it," Kurt interrupted. "Don't worry. We'll try to be a bit clearer with what we're arguing about next time."

"Next time?" Blaine repeated questioningly, looking over at his boyfriend.

"Blaine, sweetie, just because this is the first time we've fought, it does not mean it'll be the last. I promise you that."

"Yeah, man," Finn agreed, nodding wisely, the look somewhat diminished by the fact that no one had forgotten his misguided monologue of only moments ago. "Kurt and I fight about stuff like this all the time – stupid stuff. It's just a part of being family."

Still, Blaine's eyes stayed on Kurt, and despite the fact that he'd heard them arguing and walked in on them kissing, the look that the boys shared then was by far the most intimate thing Finn had witnessed so far. He felt like an intruder in his own room, and that was just weird. So he coughed loudly, breaking the silence, and Blaine's eyes moved swiftly back to the floor, his hands jumping to fiddle with his tie again.

"So..." Finn said, nodding. "You two want to play Xbox?"

"Sure," Kurt answered with a shrug. "As long as I can be on the top screen."

Finn busied himself with untangling the remotes and starting up the game as he felt another _look_ pass between Kurt and Blaine. But then the moment was over and Kurt was sitting back down on the indentation in Finn's bed and Blaine sat by his feet, leaning back on his boyfriend's legs. Finn took a spot next to Kurt, handing over the remote to his brother and talking him through the screens as he navigated them to the right race.

"You know I'm never giving you permission to come into my room when I'm not home, right?" Finn asked as the track loaded.

"I figured," Kurt replied, and Finn pretended to miss the way his brother's leg bumped against Blaine's shoulder affectionately, the little smile that crept onto both their faces.

Because Finn was focussing on racing now and, at least while he wasn't arguing or kissing Blaine or anything, Kurt was a pretty good opponent. Besides, Kurt was family and, increasingly, so was Blaine. No stupid misunderstanding was going to change that. At least not if Finn had anything to say about it.

Finn smiled and concentrated on the screen. _Bottom screen_, he reminded himself, and then missed the start completely as a vivid flash of Miss Holiday's diagrams invaded his mind at the thought.


	9. First Time

**_Something New:_**

**a story of Klaine 'firsts'**

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><p><em><strong>WARNING!<strong>_

_This chapter is **rated M**. It is** not explicit**, but it is essentially about m/m sex._

_Before you click away though, can I do my spiel?  
>This chapter is perhaps the most complex and wonderful thing I've ever written. Yes, it's rated M, but it isn't porn, it isn't smut - it's about sex as an act of love, as a promise, as a way to express everything that can't be said. I take my writing very seriously, so I hope you can believe me when I say that this chapter is special. I wrote it intending for it to be accessible to people of any age, who can use their own good sense to skip past things that they don't want to read.<br>But, ultimately, it is still rated M. This will still be here in two or three years time, or however long it takes you to be able to truly appreciate it, without being distracted by your own discomfort._

_On a separate note, if any chapter of this story deserves a flame, this is it. I am aware of that. So here's my invitation to go crazy if you are that way inclined._

* * *

><p><strong>~First time completely alone + First intimate touch + First morning after sex, prompted by MissMarauder93, <strong>Erin Hartson<strong> and LightUpTheGleeWorld**

"Do you regret it?"

Blaine switched the blinker on, scanning right then left as he turned into his street, waiting until the car was on a straight again before glancing at his boyfriend.

"Do I regret what?"

Kurt shrugged, wringing his hands uncomfortably in his lap.

"Transferring, joining Glee club, the musical, even Dalton and Westerville and the Warblers..." he trailed off, flicking a nail in a loud noise that broke the tense silence in the car, then murmured, "Do you regret us? Me?"

Blaine's eyebrows furrowed and he bit his lip as he pulled up to the curb, cutting off the engine and sighing into the sudden quiet left in the wake of its buzz.

"Of course not."

Comforted by the stillness, he looked over at his boyfriend, wondering how and where and why.

It wasn't that Kurt's question was unexpected, but more that it was unfathomable. Because, yes, Blaine had regrets – most of them resulting from events of the last 48 hours – but Kurt wasn't one of them. Kurt could never be one of them.

Kurt smiled a soft and nervous smile in reply, meeting Blaine's eyes with an intense stare.

It was strange, but Blaine felt naked under that stare. He felt exposed and bare and like a stark white canvas just before it becomes a masterpiece. Like an unwritten novel, an unplastered wall: fragile, temporary, waiting. It wasn't a feeling of nervousness or uncertainty, but more one of incompleteness. As if every moment up until this one – up until _this_ boy had looked at him in _this _way – had been utterly insignificant. Like the entire world rotated around now.

Because... wow. This was big. Not in an I Love You way, but in a different way. It somehow felt much more adult and mature and scary, because this – this thing that they were about to do, to have, to experience – wasn't something that Blaine had been watching in Disney movies for his whole life. Sex was usually so contained, so private, so sheltered. It was usually hidden beneath thin bed sheets and sweaty skin, behind blushes and downward gazes, within obnoxious ads and pop-up windows...

But this wasn't.

This was open and acknowledged and real between them, and it felt insane to Blaine that, in this moment – impossible as it may seem, given that they weren't even touching one another – he and Kurt had somehow made sex tangible. Just the prospect of doing it, the certainty that they both had about where tonight was leading, somehow made it real.

There was something intimate about that. About sitting here, knowing what they both knew. Knowing that soon they'd be with each other – together and close in a way that was utterly unique, utterly new. Knowing what Kurt felt, what he felt _like_, and about to know so much more. Knowing that he was the first, the only person ever to touch this boy the way he did and make him feel the way he did.

It felt like the best ever invasion of privacy. Like midnight snacks and late-night phone calls and reading a book under bedcovers by the light of a torch – like everything that had been forbidden from Blaine for so long. Everything that he'd forbidden himself from, when others forgot to do it for him.

That was what was so striking about Sebastian, really. The fact that he was so open about it all – no innuendoes, no implications, no suggestions. With him, everything was obvious and matter-of-fact, everything he thought was crystal clear, and while on one hand Blaine found his attitude refreshing and welcoming and wonderful, on the other hand he found it terrifying.

Because Blaine never wanted to be like him – never wanted things to be that casual. Yes, sometimes he dreamt of the day when sex could be a regular thing, a normal thing, but never did he want it to be meaningless. This was a whole world of experiences that he had been barred from for such an incredibly long time, but he thought that that proved more than anything that this very much _meant_ something. It shouldn't have been such a shock for it to feel like this, but God it _was_, and all of sudden Blaine had these emotions that he had no idea how to control, how to feel, how to handle.

It felt as if his blood was everywhere all at once. In his head and his heart and his crotch. Everything was pounding, pulsing, whirling, thrilling-

"It's just us," Kurt said, pulling Blaine out of his dizzying thoughts. "Just you and me."

Blaine nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

"Your parents aren't home, right?"

Blaine nodded again, vaguely wondering what he and Kurt would do if they were.

"So we're alone?"

Another nod.

"Good."

And then Kurt was leaning in and this kiss was certain and firm and somehow sort of... full. As if it filled all the gaps that Blaine had never realised were empty. And although he still didn't know if he was a picture or a book or a wall, Blaine knew that, whatever he was, Kurt was absolutely vital in finishing him, completing him, turning him in to what he would become. Making something out of nothing.

The whole world tilted on its side and there was a tangle of elbows and knees and necks, but then Kurt was settling on Blaine's lap, straddling his thighs, back curved around the steering wheel. His hands were on Blaine's neck, thumbs brushing gently over his cheeks in sharp contrast to the rough scrape of his lips, which were tugging and sucking on Blaine's – starved and ravenous.

Blaine made a sound at the back of his throat and Kurt arched into it, his whole body pressing forward. But the angle was awkward and wrong and even with their chests flush nothing was close enough.

"Inside," Blaine mumbled against Kurt's lips. "Now."

Kurt let out breathy laugh and pulled back, head bumping the car's felt ceiling as he looked down at Blaine.

"You want to be _inside_?" he asked, coy and grinning, "Inside what?"

Blaine groaned, deciding then and there that he loved suggestions, innuendoes and implications. Absolutely adored them.

He grabbed his boyfriend and pulled him in again, giving him two soft kisses and then a million hard ones, tongue stroking over Kurt's in a haphazard rhythm that wasn't fast enough or rough enough or anything enough, but God it was good. Blaine's hands clenched around Kurt's shoulders, and as the sound of their shallow breaths filled his ears – clashing somehow, like an incomplete chord – he let one drop down, down, down to Kurt's ass. The other joined it quickly and then all of a sudden he could tug Kurt closer, close enough to be able to feel him move above him, shifting until the contact, the friction, was almost too much to bear.

"Inside," Blaine whined again, practically begged, and again Kurt seemed to think the innuendo was more important than the actual request.

"Soon," he promised, letting up his kisses only for a second.

Blaine almost wanted to forget that this would be so much easier on a bed, because the bed was far away and the back seat wasn't, and Kurt really didn't seem to mind. And maybe, three days ago, he would've forgotten about it, but not today, not now, not after...

"No," Blaine turned his head away and let his hands fall off Kurt, onto the seat, feeling an impatient groan rumble through his boyfriend as his lips hit Blaine's cheek. "We have to go inside the house, Kurt. I don't want this to be here. Not- not now. Not after... everything."

Kurt was still breathing hard, but the lack of contact and the sincerity of Blaine's tone seemed to alert him to who they were and where they were and what they were doing.

"You're right," he breathed, leaning back. "We need to- slow. Relax."

"We have all night," Blaine reminded him. "And I want to do this properly. I want- no, you _deserve_ it to be right."

Their eyes held for a long moment, and the tension and nervousness from before had dissolved to be replaced by a strange sort of tranquillity – a mutual acceptance that this was new but they both so, so wanted it. Deserved it.

"Thank you," Kurt said finally, smiling. "You're incredible."

Blaine watched as his boyfriend moved off his lap, settling back into the passenger seat where he took a few deep breaths, touching his flushed cheeks. Exhaling loudly, Blaine undid his seatbelt and turned to grab his bag from the backseat before opening his door. Kurt followed suit, making to step out onto the pavement, pausing when Blaine's hand brushed against his, just fingertips on knuckles.

"Not without you," Blaine whispered, and he wanted to explain that feeling of being an empty canvas, an entity innately incomplete and unfinished, but he didn't know how to say it, how to tell Kurt that he was absolutely vital. "If I'm incredible it's because of you. Everything's because of you."

Kurt looked like he wanted to argue but Blaine didn't give him the chance, getting out of the car and hurrying around to meet his boyfriend at his door. The promise of what was to come seemed to buzz between them – incorporeal but undoubtedly _there_ – and although they didn't touch as they walked along the path to the front door, it felt to Blaine as if things were still impossibly intimate and close and bare. He kind of loved the feeling.

It only took a moment for Blaine to open the front door and drop his bag to the carpet, kicking it under a table and toeing off his shoes. Kurt was slightly more careful, placing his bag on the floor and carefully removing his shoes too before straightening to meet Blaine's eyes. They exchanged a smile and then everything seemed to suddenly accelerate until they were halfway up the stairs and Blaine was a step above his boyfriend, bearing down on him and kissing him greedily, fingers stroking over his cheek and down his side and sliding into belt loops to pull him up, closer.

Never before had the distance between Blaine's front door and his bedroom felt so far, but the trip between the two had never been this enjoyable either and, by the time he was pulling Kurt through his doorway, Blaine's hands were at the bottom of his boyfriend's bloody _layers_, fumbling with material. Kurt laughed a little against Blaine's lips as his progress was halted for a moment by Kurt's vest, but then another pair of deft fingers were there too, carefully removing the barrier and making Blaine's heart stutter at the sound of the first item of clothing falling to the floor.

"Bed," he insisted.

Kurt made a sound of agreement, hands racing up Blaine's chest to grasp at his shirt as he backed up, pulling Blaine with him. Blaine felt Kurt stop when his knees hit the edge of the mattress, and for a second he pulled away to meet his eyes.

"Okay?" he asked, always careful, always cautious.

"Fantastic," Kurt replied with a smile, leaning in to kiss Blaine hard before moving down to sit on the bed, shuffling backwards as Blaine followed him.

Their lips met again and yes, this was better. Things were so much closer here than they had been in the car and, as Kurt lay back against the covers, Blaine was able to spread out over him like a blanket, not quite pressing but certainly touching, making sure every inch of their bodies was connected.

He kissed Kurt like he was everything because in this moment more than ever he so, so was, and after a moment Kurt seemed to stop kissing back, just letting himself be completely and utterly consumed. Blaine moved his mouth away from Kurt's, pressing against his cheek, his jaw, his neck where he found his pulse and kissed and kissed and kissed because it was pounding with blood and life and _Kurt_. Beneath him, Kurt was letting out little noises, sounding overwhelmed and engulfed and wonderful, but his hands were sure as they slid down Blaine's back, bumping across vertebrae and then coming to rest at the hem of his shirt, where he fingered the material for a second before beginning to tug at it.

Blaine leant back to let Kurt pull his shirt over his head and he rolled off to lay beside him as the material fluttered through the air, thrown out of the way, freeing Kurt's hands so they could fall onto Blaine's chest, pressing through his singlet and shuddering at the feel of warm skin.

"I love you," Blaine murmured, as they lay side-by-side on the bed. "More than ever."

And it was crazy but it was true – the way Kurt was so much more than just a person, than just another body on a bed.

With a startling clarity, the realisation came that this- this was love. This was what they meant when they said it kept growing and to Blaine it was like Jack's beanstalk or Sisyphus' punishment or Midas' touch, because it just kept going and going and everything he touched, saw, tasted was gold beneath him. Everything kept becoming impossibly more perfect. More vibrant and more vital and each bit of Kurt's skin, each breath he let out was another brushstroke against the canvas, each so crucial in creating the masterpiece but the combination of them – the full of experience of this – was what nirvana was. This was paradise. This was like reaching heaven and then still floating up, entering a realm more blissful with every inch he rose.

"I love you too," Kurt said, and Blaine sensed that he didn't know how to say the rest so left it there – simple but enough.

Blaine knees were pressed against Kurt's, and all over his body everything seemed to be hyper-alert to the feeling of lying on his bed beside the boy he loved. The crease of the covers against his bare feet, the smoothness of one of Kurt's elbows just brushing his arm, the soft comfy feel of the pillow below his head... it was all so powerful, so deep, as if everything around him was sinking into his skin, becoming a part of him.

A smile floated onto Blaine's lips as his boyfriend ran a hand up to hold his shoulder, palm gently curling around it, as if they were meant to hold each other like this, be with each other like this. Their eyes stayed locked and Blaine unconsciously unfolded one of his arms from where they were crossed on his stomach, stroking up Kurt's side, down his arm, and then gripping loosely onto his wrist. Kurt smiled slightly, and Blaine couldn't help but think that maybe Kurt liked this, this feel of being trapped, held, wanted, _needed_ by someone else.

Blaine's hold on Kurt's wrist wasn't tight but it was solid and sure, like how he'd hold a paintbrush or a pencil or a baby – something precious, something sacred, something fragile. Something that, when he held it, became a part of him, just for that infinite moment when skin and wood and skin were one. It was an extension of him, a part of him, an extra limb or a tail or a tie. It made him complete. It made him special.

Shutting his eyes against the onslaught of emotions – the wild, crazy, half-formed thoughts that bombarded his mind – Blaine inhaled deeply, trying to calm his heart, which had started racing, pounding to a syncopated rhythm. And Kurt must've been able to feel under his palm and see in his eyes that his boyfriend was maybe freaking out just a little at all of this, so he murmured something soft, something unimportant and tender and soothing, and Blaine looked up and Kurt filled his vision and suddenly things weren't so scary.

Focussing only on Kurt – the almost-smile on his face, the gentle press of his fingers – Blaine leant in to nuzzle closer, not kissing but invading Kurt's space, pushing too close, too warm. For a wonderful second they were breathing the same air, basking in the same glowing heat, and it was absolutely without a doubt the closest Blaine had ever been to anyone, the most vulnerable and isolated and conscious that he'd ever felt.

But none of that mattered. Because, above it all, it felt undeniably, impossibly, inexplicably _right_.

Kurt bit his lip and for a second Blaine thought he was trying to be coy (it was working) but then he noticed the genuine shyness in his boyfriend's eyes and pulled away a little, creating space between them and moving his hand from Kurt's wrist to intertwine their fingers.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing," Kurt answered quickly. "I'm just, um- thinking. About- about how this is, uh... going to- going to _work_."

He said the last word carefully, avoiding Blaine's eyes as a self-conscious blush erupted on his cheeks.

Blaine was startled by the question, surprised that it had come up at all and even more shocked that Kurt had been the one to ask it. Because, while in the literal sense he hadn't really thought about it, in a lateral way he really, really had thought an awful lot about it and knew precisely how he wanted it to 'work', but now that he was faced with the opportunity to actually say it aloud he felt suddenly reluctant to discuss it.

"I don't know," he said carefully. "How do you want to...?"

Kurt smiled a little at the omission, squeezing Blaine's fingers.

"Well, I always thought that I'd- I mean, I just assumed that you'd want to..." Kurt took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a long moment and then opening them again. "You want to- to top. Right?"

Blaine kept his expression carefully neutral, wondering if he was supposed to nod, smile and lean in kiss his boyfriend, ending this conversation here and now. Usually he would've been happy to do just that. In fact, really, even in this circumstance, just having heard Kurt Hummel say 'top', Blaine was feeling pretty damn content with things going exactly the way they were heading.

But there was a tiny little bother niggling in the corner of his mind, and God if they couldn't be honest with each other _now_ when on earth could they?

"Um, yeah. That sounds good," Blaine said. "I mean, I'd be happy with that, if that's what you want. But I'd also be happy with... y'know... the other way. If you want that."

Kurt's eyes widened, and Blaine wasn't sure if it was because no, no, no he most certainly _didn't_ want that, or if he was just shocked at being given a choice, being allowed to think about doing things differently to the way he'd anticipated.

"Oh. I've never really thought of it being... that way," Kurt muttered, frowning.

Looking down, Blaine tried to hide his smile, a thrilling tingle going right through his body at the idea of Kurt thinking about this kind of thing.

"You've thought about this?" he asked, giving into the temptation, completely distracted by the tingling.

"Sometimes," Kurt admitted.

"And when you think about it... which way are we-?"

"Both. Either. Or sometimes just- just other stuff. I don't really- I mean, everything is... it changes."

"Yeah. Me too."

They were silent, and in some ways this was awkward but in other ways it was surprisingly, shockingly intimate. It felt vaguely as if they were telling each other their deepest secrets – and in some ways they were – and trusting them to be accepted and listened to and kept.

Blaine licked his lips, glancing at his closed bedroom door before whispering, "Have you- have you tried... touching yourself?"

Kurt raised his eyebrows in a 'who hasn't?' way and Blaine felt himself blush.

"No, I mean have you touched yourself at the- uh... the back. You know. _There_."

"_Oh_."

Silence.

"Uh, not- not really. No."

More silence.

"Have you?"

Blaine felt his blush deepen, and he was half-convinced that this conversation should just end here and now and they should go back to kissing and he should never bring this up again. But at the same time...

He sat up, letting Kurt's hand fall off his shoulder as the action forced Kurt to roll onto his back, pulling his and Blaine's clasped hands with him until they rested on his chest, rising and falling with every breath. Blaine moved to run his other hand through his hair, but felt the gel from the play and snatched it back. His boyfriend watched with bright blue eyes, fingers drumming out a beat against the bed beside him. Kurt didn't say anything, but his eyes were imploring – too wide and too bright – and Blaine had to look away.

Because, God, he was supposed to be the experienced one. He was the one who'd watched the movies and given the advice and acted like he knew exactly how all of this worked. And yes, he'd touched himself in places – in ways – that Kurt hadn't, but that barely meant anything. Here and now they were both equally inexperienced, equally anxious and equally overwhelmed. It meant nothing that Blaine had gone slightly further in his late-night fantasies than Kurt had. Nothing at all.

"Sometimes. Once or twice. Only after we-" Blaine broke off and cleared his throat, glancing up from his lap to look at Kurt, to gauge his reaction, "Only thinking of- or, really, imagining- or, uh... Only _with_ you."

Kurt blushed at the admission, but Blaine thought it was a glad blush, not a mortified one.

"That's-" Kurt laughed a little to himself, lips breaking out into a smile. "That's actually kind of... hot. Or sexy. Or something."

"'Or something'?" Blaine teased, twisting his body to move closer to Kurt, hovering above him and looking down, left hand intertwined with Kurt's right on his chest.

"You know what I mean," Kurt mumbled. "It's just... I like that you think about me like that. It's- it's nice."

"'Nice'?"

Kurt kicked Blaine's shin in half-hearted anger, but Blaine bent his leg down to catch Kurt's and hold it there. Then one or both of them moved, pulled or pushed or _something_, and suddenly Blaine was fully over Kurt and they were both smiling and laughing and comfortable. And yeah, the awkwardness was still there – they were both still virgins and this was still their first time feeling and planning and talking about any and all of this – but it was a good type of awkwardness now. A familiar, mutual type.

"You're lucky I love you," Kurt breathed before tugging on Blaine's hand that he still held, moving it down and placing it on the small of his back. Blaine flexed his fingers, digging them in under Kurt's shirt to brush lightly against his skin.

"So lucky," he agreed, leaning in and letting Kurt meet him halfway.

The kiss was sweet and stunning and perfect. It was a kiss between two people who had forever to get where they wanted to go. Two people who had plenty more arguments to have, plenty more awkward situations to face, plenty more compromises to make, but who didn't care one bit. They'd make it through.

Blaine's skin, his heart, his whole body thrummed at the feel of Kurt against him and around him and with him. He was hit again with that revelation, that epiphany of just how vital Kurt was. Because, wrapped up together like this, he felt complete. He felt like a masterpiece, or at least like one in the making. Kurt was his artist, his sculptor, his poet. Kurt was art and beauty and joy. Kurt was everything.

And he wanted to feel that.

"Kurt?"

"Hmm?"

"I don't want- I mean, I want to... I want you to-"

"Blaine," Kurt said. "It's just us, remember?"

"I want you inside me," Blaine blurted, leaning back down to kiss Kurt quickly so that he couldn't laugh or gasp or whatever his response was supposed to be.

Kurt seemed distracted, but not unresponsive. He kissed back, and after a moment he seemed to have forgotten about it or accepted it, because his hands were sliding down Blaine's sides and then to his hips and then onto his ass, pulling in and close and- _wow_.

"You don't mind?" Blaine asked eventually, the words almost moan.

Kurt made a vague movement that might have been a shrug, still clearly focussing on everything else.

"I love you," Blaine said again, for what must have been the millionth time that night, unable to hold it in.

"Me too," Kurt mumbled as his hands moved back up from Blaine's ass, curling around his hips and holding him up as Kurt kissed down his boyfriend's neck.

But, Blaine realised, it felt right to say 'I love you' so much. This entire act, after all, wasn't about _doing_ something, it was about _feeling_ something. Sex – at least sex between them – _should_ be like love or like honesty or like trust. It should be abstract, undefinable, a scribble of messy lines that didn't quite align for anyone. And, _oh_, right.

There was no solid, perfect, absolute definition of what sex was between them. There was no set way they had to do anything, no set thing they had to feel or experience or see. _This_ – this intimacy, this intention, this desire – might be all that would happen tonight. Because it wasn't about how far they went or what they did. Sex was about exposing themselves, putting it all on the line, being willing to be this close to another person. As far as Blaine was concerned, they'd already done so much more than enough tonight.

"We don't have to- to go that far," Blaine whispered, his voice catching when Kurt's lips pressed against his collar bone. "Not tonight. I mean, we can just- just see what happens. We don't have to do _everything_ straight away."

Pulling away and looking up, Kurt grinned.

"I know," he replied. "But thank you for saying it out loud."

And then they were kissing again, lips on lips, and despite the fact that they'd done this hundreds of times before, it felt so incredibly free, so indescribably liberating, because this time there were no limits, no boundaries. This time, if they wanted, they could go on forever.

Blaine's hands grasped onto Kurt's waist as he rolled onto his back, pulling his boyfriend on top of him. Kurt seemed so small from here, sprawled over his chest, and it reminded Blaine of that boy who'd sat opposite him at the table at Dalton, sipping his coffee, calmly asking why he hadn't been beaten up yet, although not in so many words. That was a Kurt from so long ago that Blaine could barely manage to reconcile that first impression with the boy laying on top of him now – the Kurt pressing kisses to his neck, leaning away for a moment to look down at Blaine's lips, skimming his thumb across Blaine's collar bone, creasing Blaine's singlet as he gathered the material in his hand, starting to pull, starting to tug, starting to want more...

Blaine flicked his gaze up to catch Kurt's eyes and he sighed at what he could see in them: a new certainty, a new confidence.

"I want to touch-" Kurt started, but Blaine didn't think he'd be likely to survive if he heard the end of that sentence, and as spontaneous combustion was really not on his to-do list right now, he surged up and captured Kurt's lips, swallowing his gasp and pushing, pushing, pushing. Taking.

Reacting to the sudden intensity, Kurt slipped a hand down quickly to trace the hem of Blaine's singlet, yet as Blaine arched his back up in a silent plea, Kurt made no move to pull it off. Instead, his fingers slid lower, touching the waistband of Blaine's pants, thumb dipping under as his fingers splayed across the front.

Blaine let out an unintelligible noise, some amalgamation of a curse and a prayer and _Kurt_, and it urged his boyfriend onwards, making him take Blaine's bottom lip in his mouth and suck it hard as his hand pressed down, finally – _finally_ – _feeling_.

Both boys let out groan and if anyone else had been home it would've been an obscenely obvious indicator of what they were doing, but no one else was home and they were alone and this was incredible.

The universal newness of it – the way in which every single facet of this was an entirely novel experience – was overwhelming, and in the miniscule corner of his mind that was still able to think coherently, Blaine tried to capture each sound, each sensation, each crease of emotion that he could feel on Kurt's face, trying to commit it all to memory.

But in the rest of his mind – the majority of it – there was nothing but an ecstatic array of lights and colours and noises, and they were separate but together, all connecting to create a new dimension, a space-time-other, where everything somehow existed on the same plane. And, God, none of it made sense, but surely this was the same as being an artwork or a book or a building or a person – something created and crafted and perfected, but yet innately unfinished, imperfect, purposeless – and all Blaine really knew was that Kurt's hand on _him_ was absolutely everything. It was what kept him from floating away altogether, becoming some sort of undefined entity: empty, meaningless, lifeless.

"More," Blaine whined, impossibly extracting himself from the blissful haze for long enough to open his eyes and fix his gaze on Kurt.

He realised that at some stage they'd stopped kissing and that now he was merely rutting, lifting up into Kurt's hand and dropping back down again, creating friction. Almost too much friction, but still _not enough, not enough, not enough_.

Kurt was smiling, and Blaine couldn't help but get the feeling that his boyfriend kind of loved being in control, having this power over him. The words '_rip each other's clothes off_' came to mind as Kurt flicked his wrist, and with surprising speed he had Blaine's pants unbuttoned and unzipped. Then, without so much as a pause or a warning or _anything_, his hand was there – _right there_, _touching_ – and maybe he might've been nervous but he sure didn't seem it.

Blaine tried to make a noise, Kurt's name or a moan or something, but it was impossible for him to so much as take the breath he'd need to create the sound.

"Good?" Kurt asked, sounding anxious.

Guiltily, Blaine realised that he'd more or less forgotten anyone else was there. Not in the sense that he'd forgotten Kurt – because Kurt was _everything_ right now – but he'd sort of gone numb to anything outside of his own little bubble of pleasure.

"Yes," Blaine managed to respond, closing his eyes and tipping his head back, trying to fight against the tugging, flowing, dragging current that was trying to pull him under, trying to make him just succumb to it all.

"Can you-?"

Kurt left the sentence unfinished, dipping down to kiss Blaine's neck, breathing hard against it as his hand kept working, trying to build up a rhythm.

"You want me to-? Yes, I- I'll... yeah."

Blaine felt anesthetized, boneless, body-less as he lifted the hand that had been lying motionless on Kurt's back and began to move it around his side, pushing up his shirt to trace the bottom of his ribs, the dip of his belly-button, before settling over his zip.

Kurt had pulled away a bit to fit his hand between their bodies, but as Blaine's fingers brushed closer he thrust down, the movement surprising them both as it temporarily trapped them: a tangle of twisting fingers and scraping knuckles and _hard_, _insistent_ skin. The sensations made both boysgasp, groan, then clutch each other tighter with their free hands, searching blindly until their lips were pressed together again and suddenlyliterallyfinally _every_ inch of them was pressed together and it was a little awkward and a little harsh and a little messy but so, so perfectly _right_ and _them_ and _yes_.

Everything was still intertwined, and the passion, the energy, the buzz was still building, but as the boys shoved at one another's pants, sighing at the _feel _of_ freedom_, Blaine felt somehow less distracted, less disembodied, more concrete. Every brush of Kurt's skin, every touch of his fingertips, every graze of his teeth reminded Blaine that he was _there_: solid, existent, present. Reminded him that this was exactly what Kurt gave to him, what he did to him. This was why Blaine needed him.

Yes, Blaine _existed_ without Kurt, but it was less of an existence. It was a life without colour and texture and tones, without vibrancy and depth and extremes.

Just by being there, Kurt did something to him, gave something to him, changed him.

And that's what this was about. This was about Blaine wanting – _needing_ – to feel complete, whole, beautiful. About him knowing that _Kurt_ was the one, the only one, who could make him feel that way. About him loving this boy so resolutely, so absolutely, that he had literally run out of other ways to express it.

"I love you," Blaine said again – always first, because after all he was the canvas, the foundations, the base. He was the one who was grounded and solid and constant.

Kurt was the artist, the angel, the super-natural _something_ that transcended material existence and brought his magic and his unexpected brilliance into Blaine's world. He was the one who dreamed for the two of them, planned for the two of them, took risks for the two of them. He was the other half.

"I love you too," he replied.

And Blaine thanked his lucky stars that it was true.

...

It was raining outside when Blaine woke up.

Not much rain, not a storm or a typhoon or a hurricane. Just a light drizzle, enough to ensure a wispy fog surrounded the window, blocking out everything other than the perfect little world he was engulfed in.

Kurt was already awake, lying next to Blaine but facing away, one hand absent-mindedly fiddling with a loose thread in the sheets.

"You okay?" Blaine asked, unable to hold in a grin at the hoarseness of his voice.

Starting at being caught off-guard, Kurt peered over his shoulder, smiling as he took in his boyfriend: dishevelled hair, cheeks dark with stubble, blissed-out expression dominating his face.

"I'm great," Kurt replied honestly, turning around to lie on his other side so he could look at Blaine more easily. "You?"

Blaine let out a deep breath, almost a groan, in response, and an emphatic _yes_ was buried somewhere in the noise. He closed his eyes and rolled his shoulders, then pushed himself onto his side as well and extracted a hand from under the covers to place over Kurt's, still pulling at the sheets.

The quiet pitter-patter of rain against the window was the only sound to be heard for a long moment, and then Blaine groaned again and shuffled closer to Kurt, stretching a leg out to feel for him under the covers.

A long, wonderful expanse of bare leg greeted him, but as he moved closer still he frowned at the feel of cotton, of underwear, creating a barrier between the otherwise total sensation of skin on skin.

"Why are you wearing clothes?" Blaine asked, somewhat huffily, pouting just a little.

Kurt laughed, pulling his free hand out from under the sheets to push his boyfriend's hair off his forehead, continuing to stroke it gently when Blaine pressed into the touch.

"I felt... I don't know, _strange_ without them. Bare or-"

"Naked?" Blaine suggested, eyebrows raised and mouth tweaked in a teasing smile.

"_Yes_, naked. But not in a good way."

Blaine crowded even closer, wondering vaguely if it would be possible to somehow be absorbed inside Kurt and just live together with him as a part of his body for the rest of eternity.

"There's a bad way for you to be naked?" Blaine muttered distractedly, still focussing on trying to be nearer, trying to restore that feeling of wholeness and completeness that he had achieved the night before. "Is there a bad way for _me_ to be naked? Wait, am I still naked and you're not? That's not fair..."

"It's perfectly fair," Kurt informed his boyfriend in a tone that suggested he was an expert in the matter.

"You should be a judge," Blaine responded with sleepy certainty, ducking his head down to nuzzle into the crook of Kurt's neck. "If you know so much about what's fair and what's not."

"I'll keep that in mind," Kurt muttered, chuckling to himself as Blaine finally forced him onto his back so that he could curl himself up around Kurt's side, head tucked under his chin and arms and legs encircling him in a loose grip.

Blaine didn't quite know how he felt – it was somehow a polar opposite to the day before, and yet simultaneously exactly the same.

He still felt like a person – like himself, like Blaine – but there was something else, something new. He felt more dependent, more entwined, more symbiotic with Kurt. There was this new thing, this desperate, almost hysterical little pull, like a tiny creature had been conceived and born into his mind last night. Maybe it was sex – the desire to do it again and again and again that everyone had warned him would start once he'd done it the first time – or maybe it was something else.

It felt like a very, very strong connection to Kurt. To Kurt specifically, not to people who would have sex with him generally. It felt like friction or like the dip between puzzle pieces or like an iron cable holding up a suspension bridge – like something that wasn't quite a part of them, something that could, Blaine supposed, exist independently of their relationship, but that had its entire purpose defined by them staying as _them_. Staying together.

Kurt gasped a bit as Blaine wound himself tighter around him, and Blaine could feel his boyfriend's heart picking up pace under his cheek.

In a disengaged part of his brain, Blaine realised that, if he made an effort, he and Kurt could probably go for another round this morning, and maybe a million more all day long if they wanted, because his parents weren't coming home all weekend. But his mind was too caught up with flickering remnants of last night and this morning and here and now – flashes of skin, eyes, hands, emotions, thoughts, _everything_ invading his mind, making his heart pound, but with excitement, anticipation, maybe even a little bit of pride, rather than with fear.

In this moment, he was proud of himself, proud of Kurt, proud of the two of them for having successfully navigated this new area. Together, they'd charted a new section of the globe, and they had forever to spend painstakingly, delicately sketching it onto a map, recreating it in absolute perfection, because anything less would just not do.

"I love you," he murmured into Kurt's neck, kissing the breath-moistened skin.

Beneath him, Kurt laughed, and replied, "If you keep saying that so often I'm going to stop believing you. Because I've got to say it feels less and less genuine every time."

Blaine shook his head vigorously, the action making him dizzy so early – Was it early? He didn't know for sure... – in the morning.

"No, it's genuine, Kurt, I promise. It's always genuine. Besides," he added as an afterthought, "if you make me stop saying it, I'm going to have to start showing it instead."

For a second, Kurt was silent, and Blaine let his eyes flutter closed, ready to fall asleep again. But then Kurt slyly said, "Go ahead. Show me," and pushed his hips up against Blaine's naked thigh in a way that no judge could ever deem fair.

And suddenly, Blaine wasn't feeling so tired anymore.

"It would be my pleasure," he whispered.

Kurt laughed, and Blaine pretended not to hear the word 'dork' hidden in among the chuckles.


	10. First Shower Together

**A/N: Results came out today for the big exams that I did back in October. This chapter was written last night in an attempt to de-stress because I couldn't sleep.**

**With that in mind, I feel like I should apologise to mysticflare if this isn't what you envisioned. Every so often I have an off day and take it out on a prompt, so I'm sorry it had to be yours. However, I promise that at least the premise for this came to me when I perfectly sane, so despite my mood when I was writing it, it may have still turned out all right. You be the judge.**

* * *

><p><strong><em><span>Something New:<span>_**

**a story of Klaine 'firsts'**

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><p><em>The following warnings apply to this chapter:<em>

_OOC-ness, intrusive author-voice, complete lack of subtlety, heavily implied smuttish things._

_If any of those things irk you, please stay away. _

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><p><strong>~First shower together, prompted by mysticflare<strong>

In retrospect, Kurt probably should have warned Blaine. Looking back through the wonderful rose-tinted lenses – no doubt belonging to a pair of shiny Jackie-O sunglasses – of hindsight, Kurt could admit as much to himself. Yet, at the time, he really hadn't known any better.

Because honestly, how was Kurt supposed to know that his talent at being able to tell whether or not someone was in the shower would result in such an unexpected situation arising?

...

It had all started back when Burt had his heart-attack. To be blunt, his son had been... well, clingy. Too clingy, one might say. He'd coddled Burt – just a little. Maybe crossed the line between 'loving son' and 'creepy relative' a few too many times for comfort, but still. It had all been for good reason.

And it was precisely for _good reason_ that Kurt had learnt – unconsciously, at first, but then consciously once he'd figured out there was a certain art to the education process – the different ways a shower sounds depending on its occupant.

If there was no one in it, there was always the eerie echoing splash of water on tiles. If its occupant was washing their hair, there would be the occasional lapse as a person lathered, the sound of heavy drops as a person rinsed, and then it would all repeat. If its occupant was lying unconscious on the floor, Kurt was sure that the sound would be recognisable too. It was just common sense, really. And so, Kurt had reasoned, if his father were to have another heart attack while showering, Kurt would be able to tell immediately that he wasn't under the water, allowing an ambulance to be called and CPR to commence in record time, hence ensuring Burt's survival. Clearly, it was a well thought-out plan. Clearly.

But, at a certain point – Kurt didn't quite know when, but suspected it was about midway through his senior year – this 'talent' of his had stopped being quite so useful and had started being sort of creepy. It was unintentional, really, but at some vague, undefined point in time, Kurt had begun using his powers for evil. It was inevitable. He'd succumbed – like so many heroes of the past – to temptation.

Temptation in the form of one Blaine Anderson.

Because it was _Blaine_. And not even the will-power of Spiderman, Superman and Batman combined would be strong enough to resist someone quite as chiselled, as handsome, as stunningly-breathtakingly-amazingly perfect as Blaine. That is, if Spiderman, Superman and Batman had been gay.

(And, seriously? Who were the last two trying to kid? The tights alone were a giveaway. Not to mention Robin.)

But that was beside the point.

The point was that it was through a whole series of unrelated and completely irrelevant events that Kurt ended up in his bedroom, perched on his bed with his face pinched in a frown, staring hard at the bathroom door. To put it in context, his shirt was crumpled, his lips swollen and his jeans... tight. Uncomfortably tight. Oh, yeah, and his boyfriend had just hurried into his bathroom. Thus the frown and the staring.

"Blaine?" Kurt called, cocking his head to the side as he listened for a reply.

"Yeah?" Blaine's voice sounded shaky, uncertain. On edge.

"What just happened?"

To Kurt, it seemed like a pretty fair question. One moment ago he and Blaine had been lying down on his bed, getting _thoroughly_ re-acquainted after Kurt's week-long trip to Washington with his family, and now they weren't. It was a completely unprecedented scenario, to say the least.

"Um... nothing. Nothing happened," Blaine answered hastily, his voice still wavering. "We just- I mean, I just- uh. I needed a shower. _Need_ a shower, actually."

Kurt's frown deepened. Because, yeah, they were young and in high school and he'd been away for a week, but wow. Things had never gone _that_ fast before. Either he was fantastic or Blaine was... decidedly not.

"Oh. Did you-?"

It felt incredibly awkward to have this conversation through a closed bathroom door, which Kurt found kind of perplexing given that he and Blaine were pretty damn experienced with the ins and outs of this process by now. Hell, they were _very_ damn experienced.

"No!" Blaine replied, sounding almost hysterical at the implication. "No, no, no! Of course, I didn't-! You were away for a _week_, Kurt, not a _year_ and- no. Nothing's happened. I just... need a shower. I'll only be a minute, hang on."

And Kurt heard the sound of the shower turning on.

And, _huh_. That was weird.

Kurt lifted a hand to run his fingers along his lips, closing his eyes at the memories of Blaine's touch only mere moments ago. Things really had been going very well up until now...

The Hudson/Hummel clan had arrived home from the airport about half an hour ago, and Blaine had turned up at the door only seconds later. A pleasant and obligatory 15 minutes of conversation had been undertaken, and then Kurt had shot his boyfriend a pointed look and sauntered upstairs, and after maybe 2 minutes of waiting, Blaine had joined him. They'd then had their mandatory 10 minutes of conversation, sitting side-by-side on Kurt's bed as Blaine quickly relayed the story of Tina and Mike's latest spat. And, finally, after that, Kurt had shifted a little where he sat – a completely unsubtle and embarrassingly obvious shift, given his choice of jeans – and the conversation had been effectively ended when Blaine groaned, leaned in, and kissed his boyfriend hard on the mouth.

Honestly, Kurt didn't know where things had gone wrong. He tried to think back, tried to conjure a logical explanation for Blaine's unexpected desire to shower. The problem was that logical explanations for a sudden, compulsive need to shower are never very pleasant to imagine. So Kurt stopped that train of thought quickly, stood up from his bed and approached the bathroom door.

Which was when he noticed the sound.

Remember that superpower of his?

"Uh, Blaine?"

Kurt resisted putting his ear against the door. Just.

It was no more than a throaty, hoarse, muffled, choked-out noise that came in reply.

Kurt tried again.

"What are you doing?"

Inside, Kurt could hear the shower – water pounding against the tiles on the floor – but knew with startling conviction that his boyfriend was not in it.

"Showering."

The word was almost a grunt. In fact, it was followed by a grunt, which was swiftly muffled.

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am."

"No, Blaine, you're not."

"Yes, I-"

"Blaine, I know what it sounds like when someone is using my shower. And, right now, no one is. You've just turned on the water and let it run. You're not in there."

Kurt shot a nervous look at his bedroom door, still gaping wide open, as he spoke. The hallway was deserted, and he was pretty sure that Carole, Finn and his Dad were still downstairs.

"How the hell do you-?"

Blaine's question was cut off by a sharp hiss, and at that Kurt gave up all pretence and pressed his ear to the door, listening hard for any clues as to what on earth was going on.

"How do you-?" Blaine tried again, but again he seemed to cut himself off.

"Is everything all right?" Kurt asked, unable to discern anything over the sound of the shower.

"Everything's _fine_, Kurt. Just... give me a minute, please?"

"_Why?_"

And this is where retrospect comes in.

In retrospect, Kurt really should've been able to figure out what was going on by then. It wasn't exactly rocket science. Heck, it was hardly even pre-calc. In fact, in retrospect, pre-schoolers learning how to use crayons probably could've worked it out.

But _rose-tinted Jackie-Os_, remember? At that point, Kurt didn't have them yet.

So it was with only a dash of mild concern that Kurt straightened, surveyed the bathroom door seriously for a moment, and then opened it. There was no lock, after all. Heart-attacks tended to do that to a house.

"Kurt!"

The word was a yelp. There was simply no other way to describe it. And – for a blissful, naive, _short_ second – Kurt couldn't comprehend why in the world his boyfriend was yelping.

Steam filled the bathroom, obscuring almost everything from vision. But, as is the way with steam, when Kurt opened the door it made a desperate dash at him, depleting rapidly to reveal Blaine. Sitting on the closed lid of the toilet. With his pants around his ankles. And his hands around his-

"I am so sorry! Blaine, I- I'm just- I didn't mean to... _oh, God_."

The rush of blood pounding in Kurt's ears drowned out the sound of the shower. His every sense was being assaulted by this whole new experience, because yeah, they'd done stuff and – in an up until now unacknowledged part of his mind – Kurt knew that Blaine did _this_. Knew it in a solid way, not in an abstract, _Blaine masturbates_ way, but in a definite, _I have gotten myself off thinking about Blaine doing precisely what he is doing now_ way.

But this was different. _Seeing_ it was very, very different to knowing about or imagining it.

Blaine seemed to think so too.

He was floundering.

"Kurt, I'm sorry. I'm just- I was at home in my room when you texted from the airport and I was _just _about to... y'know. But then you called and I knew you'd be home soon and I- I wanted to _wait_ and, wow, that was _really_ dumb of me, I know, but it seemed... I don't know... romantic? I guess I thought it would be good to wait and then it'd be even better when you- when we- when..."

He broke off, glanced around the bathroom rapidly as if looking for an escape, and then started up again, trampling foolishly onwards. An adverb emphasised by the fact that he was still very definitely half-naked.

"But then we were talking to your family for _so long_ and, seriously, Kurt, my pants aren't normally that tight! I thought you'd realise, but you didn't, and then _finally_ we came up here and you wanted to talk more, which was great – I love it when we talk! Really, I do! – but I was pretty much about to _explode_ by then and then we were kissing and I just didn't want everything to happen so quickly so I thought if I just tried to calm down in here and then I couldn't and- mmmph!"

The last part was due to Kurt, who decided it was high time to shut up the crazy, fast-speaking idiot with his pants around his ankles that his boyfriend had miraculously (and, hopefully, temporarily) transformed into.

Because, yeah, this was awkward. But, _God_, was it _hot_.

At some stage, Kurt had closed the bathroom door and, as he pulled Blaine up from where he was sitting, the steam began to build around them again. Cocooned in the warmth and the wetness, Blaine somewhat regained his composure - although that seemed like a poor choice of word, given the situation - and let himself be tugged closer, until his chest was hard against Kurt's and still he was being drawn in, in, in. The dampness from steam and sweat and water and _God knows what else_ settled on Kurt's clothes and his skin, making him tremble, shiver and grasp his boyfriend tighter.

Blaine's hands, after a moment of fumbling, hooked onto belt loops and tugged Kurt's bottom-half closer, the angle weird as Blaine tried to simultaneously shuck off his own pants and remove his boyfriend's. Meanwhile, Kurt was working at their top halves, tugging ineffectually at Blaine's collar until he finally realised that it was a t-shirt and could just be pulled up and over and discarded without anything having to be undone. His own clothes posed more of a difficulty, but it was with practiced actions that Kurt unlaced this, unbuttoned that, pushed this latch to the right and entered the correct four-digit code into that device, until finally everything was on the floor and it was just steam-slick skin against steam-slick skin.

And why hadn't they been doing this before? Why hadn't they been doing this _forever_?

Blaine stumbled forwards a step, pressing impossibly nearer to Kurt, making a whining sound in the back of his throat, and for some incomprehensible reason that made Kurt's mind snap back to focus. Suddenly, the sunglasses were on and Kurt Hummel had entered the realm of retrospect. And, in retrospect, he had a plan.

"Come here," he murmured against Blaine's lips, grabbing at his neck for a moment, disoriented by the lack of a tie or lapel to hold. But then he realised that, _right_, they were _naked,_ and really this just made things easier.

Another moaning whine was emitted and it made Kurt shudder, which made Blaine shudder, which made them both twitch suddenly in and _that should not be allowed to happen_ because damn it, Kurt Hummel had a mission and he was going to go through with it rain, hail or shine.

"Not yet," he whispered, almost chastised, and that just seemed to turn Blaine on_ more_ because he made another noise and jolted forwards again, although this time Kurt suspected it was driven more by eagerness than instinct.

Kurt kept moving them back, tearing his lips away from Blaine's – not that it made a huge difference, because Blaine just attached his mouth to Kurt's neck instead – to check the shower door was behind him, and then pulling back with a rougher-than-intended jerk as he extracted an arm to reach into the shower and twist the cold tap sharply, cooling the jet of steaming water that was hammering the tiled floor.

That finally seemed to get Blaine's attention and he looked up from his ministrations, his unflinchingly wild expression staring unembarrassed as Kurt raised his eyebrows and stepped out of his boyfriend's embrace, into the shower.

In retrospect, Kurt _really_ should've warned him, because Blaine looked like a wreck. His lips were swollen, his hair completely destroyed and his eyes wide and surprised and staring. Just staring. Gazing - in disbelief, wonder, shock? - at his boyfriend, who stood under the now-warm water as if things like this happened all the time between them. Personally, Kurt was quite impressed at his own ability to keep his cool. He obviously had Blaine completely fooled.

"There's a difference, you know," Kurt said conversationally, trying to ignore the fact that he was completely devoid of clothes and in his bathroom and his whole family was right downstairs. Which was surprisingly easy, mostly because Blaine was standing before him. Naked. It was very distracting.

"A difference?" Blaine repeated, sounding confused.

"Yes," Kurt recommenced, forcing his eyes to _stay on Blaine's face_. "There's a difference between the sound of a shower that someone is in and the sound of an empty shower. In fact, the sound of the water changes very precisely, and if you listen hard enough you can tell almost everything about a shower's occupant. Or occupants," he amended.

For a long moment, Blaine was silent. Kurt wondered if he was torn between mortification and excitement. Or maybe that was just Kurt.

"Does anyone else in your family know that?" Blaine finally asked, still standing just too far away, on what could only be described as the shower's threshold.

Kurt shook his head, and said, "Just me."

"Good," Blaine replied. And then he stepped closer and grinned.

And then everything changed very quickly. Suddenly there weren't any sunglasses or mortified boys to be found. There was just Kurt and Blaine. A couple of teenagers, more than a little bit crazy in love.

"A week is a _really _long time," explained Blaine, still lingering on the threshold, the edge, the _sane_ side.

He eyed Kurt's side enviously - the side of insanity, of impulsiveness, of instant gratification - and his eyes made a slow sweep down and back up. Surveying the blue-tiled walls behind his boyfriend, no doubt.

Kurt bit his lip, resisting making a joke about _other things that were long_ or how _the hot water would not last that long if Blaine didn't get over here this second_.

Instead, he raised his eyebrows, tilted his head to the side and settled with saying, "Care to join me?"


	11. First Time Revealing Secret Identities

**_Something New:_**

**a story of Klaine 'firsts'**

* * *

><p><em>This continues straight on from the last chapter, but you probably don't have to have read it to understand this.<em>

_And no warnings are needed for this - yay!_

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><p><strong>~First time they reveal their secret identities as superheroeswizards, prompted by aridnie**

"What just happened?" Blaine asked, sounding somewhere between shell-shocked and sedated.

Kurt glanced over his shoulder to grin at his boyfriend, who was sitting on the bathroom floor, his back against the shower screen. Blaine was still naked, wet hair dripping onto his shoulders, the fat droplets of water trailing down his chest and back. His eyes were half-closed, head slumped forward, forehead resting on his bent knees.

"Shower sex," Kurt said simply as he swiped a hand across the bathroom mirror, where the steam that still lingered was making a valiant effort to thwart his skincare regime.

Blaine let out a tired chuckle, turning his head sideways so he could watch as Kurt squeezed another dollop of cream onto his palm and began rubbing it onto his face.

"It was good," Blaine murmured, then his face creased into a frown. "Right?"

Laughing gently, Kurt shot his boyfriend another look, unable not to smile again at the sight of him. Blaine looked so thoroughly debauched that it was almost embarrassing. His eyes were hooded, lips raw and swollen and his whole body slack, as if he'd just run a marathon. But still he stared up at Kurt, his golden gaze questioning, so full of an absolute need to be sure that everything was all right.

"It was wonderful," Kurt assured him, taking less care than he should've to apply the last of his cream, and then abandoning the mirror to move over to Blaine, holding the towel slung around his hips as he kneeled down next to him. "_You_ are wonderful. Always."

Blaine looked vaguely pleased at the compliment, and smiled against Kurt's lips when he leant in and kissed him softly, slowly, languidly. As if they had all the time in the world. Kurt lifted a hand to skim his fingertips across Blaine's cheek, coaxing his head up as his fingers moved down Blaine's neck, over his collarbone, tickling and teasing in a lazy, absent way. Kurt's light touches keep trailing down, until he could feel Blaine's heartbeat under his skin, the heavy, sluggish thud resonating through his body.

For a moment the room was silent, but then Blaine groaned and sat up a little straighter, pushing his lips insistently against Kurt's. It wasn't hard or forceful exactly, far more affectionate than that. Kurt smiled at the thought that Blaine was trying to nuzzle against him, bury himself in his neck or his shoulder like he sometimes did at times like these, but none of that was close enough so he just pushed into the nearest part of Kurt he could find. Sure enough, it took only a moment for Blaine's lips to slide off Kurt's mouth and onto his chin, kissing under his jaw and then settling on his neck, pressing against there, tender and smooth.

"I love you," Blaine whispered into the skin. "Even if I don't always understand you."

Kurt smiled at the words, laying his cheek against Blaine's hair as he replied, "What's not to understand?"

Blaine made indistinct noises for a second, trying to simultaneously push up against Kurt's cheek and down against his shoulder and in against his neck, closing his eyes and mouthing at the skin that seemed to surround him.

"How did you know what I was doing in here?" he finally mumbled, a hand reaching up to tilt Kurt's head forwards so Blaine's lips could reach to ghost by his ear.

"I could hear-" Kurt broke off with a sharp inhale, his heart stuttering as Blaine's skimmed his teeth over his earlobe. "I could hear the- the shower," he tried again, eyes fluttering closed, "and I could tell that you weren't- uh...in it."

Blaine was still kissing around Kurt's ear, his breaths loud and moist, assaulting every sense and seeping into Kurt's blood like flames, licking all through his body from his head to his toes.

"How do you do that?"

"I just- I just learnt how to tell. It's like- _God_, _Blaine... –_ it's like a superpower."

The words made Blaine chuckle, which did utterly unfair things to his mouth on Kurt's ear.

"You have a superpower?" Blaine asked, straightening his legs as his other arm wound around Kurt's side, pulling him closer.

Kurt hummed in reply, twisting his body so it aligned better with Blaine's, ignoring the hard tiles against his knees as he moved to straddle his lap. Blaine groaned as Kurt settled over him, pulling back to watch as Kurt tugged the towel off his waist, throwing it to where their clothes were still piled beneath the sink.

"Does that make you a superhero?"

"I guess it does," Kurt shrugged, leaning in to kiss Blaine's forehead and push away lock of still-wet hair. "But I get to design my own costume. And no cape!"

He added the last part just as Blaine opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again, expression disgruntled.

"Why no cape?"

"Haven't you seen _The Incredibles_? Jet turbines, missile fins, elevators, vortexes – capes and superheroes should never mix. Besides, they don't work with my figure. Not at all flattering."

"Hmm..."

Blaine grumbled weakly as Kurt skimmed a hand down his side, settling on his hip and tracing the bone with his thumb.

"But if you want to be my sidekick, I can design a cape for you. You'd be able to pull one off, I'm sure."

"Really?"

"If you want."

Smiling, Blaine leant in close, his lips settling inches away from Kurt's. Their eyes met for a second and held – so relaxed and comfortable and right. It didn't matter that they were naked and on the bathroom floor and talking about superhero costumes, of all things. Because this was perfect, just the way it was.

"My hero," Blaine whispered, and Kurt chuckled as his boyfriend closed the distance between them.


	12. First Fight With Alaina

**_Something New:_**

**a story of Klaine 'firsts'**

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><p><em>No warnings!<em>

_And, as always, feel free to continue sending in some 'firsts' as prompts._

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><p><strong>~First fight with Alaina, prompted by Horsegahl<strong>

Blaine is having one of those days.

One of the ones where he wakes up so late that the first meal he eats is lunch, and he could, if he wanted to, while away the next hour or so arguing with Alaina about whether or not it actually counts as 'lunch' when he's eating cereal and it is the first meal after the self-imposed 'fast' that sleeping is. Hence, it is the meal that is breaking his fast. His break-fast, one might venture. If they wanted to while away an hour or so arguing with Alaina.

But, this particular morning – although it is pushing on midday by the time his fast is well and truly broken – Blaine wants to do no such thing, so he instead keeps his mouth occupied with crunching noisily through two bowls of Frosty Flakes and stonily ignores the glances his less-fun cousin and his wife are shooting at him. And, as he leaves the dining room to dump his bowl in the sink, he exchanges a subtle smile with Alaina, who positively beams back at him when she catches sight of her severely ticked-off older brother.

"Thank you for giving me this gift," she whispers, clasping Blaine's hand for a moment before she skips in and plonks herself in his recently vacated seat, grinning widely at her brother and beginning an unnecessarily loud interrogation about his wife's latest project at work.

Blaine lingers in the kitchen for long enough to hear Alaina interrupt her stuffy, boring sister in-law's story halfway through and exclaim, in a tone dripping with sarcasm, "Oh, _wow_, I love your skirt. Where did you get it?" and chuckles to himself. He decides, as he begins upstairs, that while Rachel McAdams was brilliant in _The Notebook_, Regina George will forever be her defining role as far as he's concerned.

Reaching his bedroom, Blaine makes a bee-line for the bathroom, craving a shower to well and truly wake him up. He grabs his phone as he passes his dresser, and pauses when he notices the new message from Kurt.

_Just got your voicemail that you aren't working today. Can I see you this afternoon?_

A glance at the clock and some speedy arithmetic later, Blaine is typing out a response and pressing send, flinging his phone onto his bed as he hurries into the bathroom, glad that no one is around to see how embarrassingly wide his smile is.

...

"I can't believe you want to watch this movie _again_, Blaine," Alaina says, even as she wriggles into a comfortable position on the couch. "I mean, it's not exactly the _height of romance_."

As she stresses the last phrase, she flicks her head towards Kurt, sitting on an armchair nearby, her expression a mask of concern.

"You think I'd forgotten that my boyfriend was here?" Blaine asks, incredulous. He discovered long ago that Alaina's jokes were sometimes at least marginally funny if he tried to go along with them.

Alaina shrugs and replies, "I just think that watching _Mean Girls_ with him is really not going to do anything to your sex life. Anything good, I mean. It could dry it up, I suppose. If there's anything to dry up which-" she breaks off and appraises her cousin, expression critical "-I'm really beginning to doubt."

Blaine turns away to hide his blush, fumbling a bit with the DVD as he extracts the disc from the box and busies himself putting it in the player. A task that he vaguely recollects would usually not take nearly as much focus to perform.

Cheeks still uncomfortably warm, he listens intently as Alaina apparently turns to Kurt and says, "What is up with that, anyway? You're cute in a gay-guy way and Blainey-boo isn't grotesquely disfigured, so why haven't you tapped that yet? Is it because he keeps trying to seduce you with bad teen comedies?"

"Actually, Blaine is surprisingly good at romance when he tries," Kurt responds, his tone gentle if not a bit teasing. "_Catch Me If You Can _was used very convincingly as a seduction film a couple of weeks ago."

Straightening and turning to head back to the couch, Blaine watches as Alaina scrunches her nose in confusion.

"Because you have a thing for Leo DiCaprio?" she guesses, still facing Kurt, ignoring Blaine as he sits down beside her.

Kurt shakes his head, eyes sparkling as they slide over to meet Blaine's, peering out from behind Alaina.

"No," he grins, and leaves it at that.

Alaina stares at Kurt hard for a moment, as if hoping he'll break and admit all the sordid details of what he and Blaine had gotten up to while Leo DiCaprio broke too many international laws to count in the background. Except that, really, the details aren't all that sordid and, even if they were, Blaine is sure that Kurt could never be broken by the likes of Alaina. Blaine knows from experience that it takes a much stronger person than that to convince his boyfriend to say something he doesn't want to say. And, to be perfectly honest, a bit of kissing here and there tends to help too. Not that Alaina should try that particular technique.

Eventually, all eyes turn to the screen as the main menu appears, and Blaine takes a moment to adjust the sound before pressing play, then tossing the remote to the floor in front of the TV, so that no one will be tempted to do anything drastic now that the movie is playing. Like that one time Alaina threw the remote at the TV screen in the middle of Jurassic Park for reasons that still, ten years later, completely escape him.

As Lindsay Lohan begins on her monologue, Abu sidles into the room, leaping up onto the couch between Alaina and Blaine and settling against the cushions. As his cousin reaches out to absently pet the cat, Blaine notes bitterly that he is now separated from his boyfriend by a person, a cat and the long stretch of space that they occupy. Kurt seems to be thinking the same thing, because he shoots Blaine a sad smile as Cady screams and leaps out of the way of speeding school bus. In his mind, Blaine stows away the smile, feeling it's probably the only bit of contact – physical or otherwise – that Alaina is going to let him and Kurt have all through this movie.

It's not that she's homophobic as such, or even that she's shifted unconsciously into what Blaine likes to think of as 'big sister' mode and is making some harebrained effort to protect him from being defiled by Kurt. But Alaina is just... she's canny, for lack of a better word. She has a strange ability to pick up on the mood of a room, the nature of a relationship, the significance of a moment, without really having to try. And that makes her just a little dangerous sometimes, because it's so easy for her to accidentally know too much.

For instance, Blaine is sure – probably in a paranoid corner of his mind, but still – that his cousin knows exactly what he was doing earlier during his shower. He just _knows_ that Alaina knew that he'd cut into ten minutes of his allocated hair-gelling time to instead think long and _hard_ about what he and Kurt could (hypothetically-if-we-were-alone-and-never-got-interrupted-and-were-ready-for-everything) do that afternoon. The raised eyebrows and smirk she shot him when he thundered downstairs to answer the door, her gaze lingering on his badly-gelled hair, told him as much.

And, as harmless as that was, Alaina could have said something. She could've muttered some sort of misjudged innuendo to Kurt, who would've been terrified or horrified or maybe just disgusted, and things could so easily have gone badly. Of course, she _didn't_, but her unpredictability paired with her canniness makes her a very risky ally for Blaine to have.

The problem with all of this, Blaine reasons, is that, while he loves his family in that way that everyone reluctantly does, Alaina is really the only one currently living in his house who actually seems like a friend. She supports his relationship with Kurt, encourages it even, with her little comments about how 'nice Blaine's friend Kurt is' and how 'delicious the pie made by Blaine's friend Kurt was' and how 'we should invite Blaine's friend Kurt over more often'. But he's always Blaine's _friend_. Never boyfriend.

God, it's stupid. Blaine knows that. He shouldn't care what anyone – especially Alaina, who is probably the most crass, inconsiderate, blunt person he's ever had the displeasure to meet – thinks, or how anyone else defines his and Kurt's relationship, but this is _Alaina_. The cousin who, ever since he was a kid and had begged his parents to let him keep three starving, mewling kittens, had never ceased to be on his side.

What it all comes down to, what really worries Blaine more deeply than he'd like to admit, is that he feels alone. Alaina's innuendoes and jokes are all well and good, but they don't mean anything at all. They don't mean that she's accepted his and Kurt's relationship. Honestly, they are pretty much her way of saying 'hello' in the morning.

And now... now, she's sitting between them. A picture of vindictive cockblocking, but in reality something more sinister. Because, despite knowing _exactly_ the nature of their relationship, despite knowing _exactly_ what Kurt and Blaine could and should have been doing whilst watching _Mean Girls_, Alaina is doing everything in her power to prevent it from happening. As much as she proclaims herself to be an advocate for anti-teen abstinence, Blaine is beginning to realise that this role seems only to apply when she's around heterosexual teens. Not ones like Blaine.

On screen, Cady is sporting Damien's pink shirt, and Blaine wonders if Alaina feels the same way about homosexual characters as she does about real gay people. He wonders if she winces at Janis' page in the Black Book the way he's trained himself out of doing, if she can imagine even a little bit of the pain that the whole movie is about. The pain of being different.

Abu starts purring as Alaina rubs over his ears and traces a bumpy path down his backbone. Kurt jumps, startled by the noise, and bites his lip and blushes a little in embarrassment when he catches Blaine staring. The sight of it all – of Kurt, so heart-wrenchingly beautiful every second of every day, but even more so now because he's so comfortable, so casual, so at home here – gives Blaine a sense of conviction and of purpose.

Giving Abu one last pet, Blaine stands from his place on the couch and walks around it. He brushes off Alaina's hand that shoves at him, trying to push him back to where he was sitting.

"Get out of the way, you idiot!" she calls, and it's a joke but suddenly it isn't funny anymore.

Blaine continues until he's standing in front of Kurt, sitting alone on an armchair, isolated from the couch.

"Mind if I join you there?" Blaine asks, smiling a little because from up close his boyfriend is still so darn perfect that it almost hurts.

"Here?" Kurt echoes, but it's coy and flirty and _wonderful_, accompanied by wide eyes and fluttering eyelashes. "I don't know if there's room..."

"Of course there's not room," Alaina snaps, almost sarcastic but not quite. There's tension behind the words, and maybe Kurt doesn't sense it but Blaine does, and he tries not to look at her because he knows if he does she'll know that he's on to her.

"Oh, I'm sure we'll find some," Kurt argues lightly.

And, God, he still thinks this is pleasant banter. He doesn't realise that something else is going on here, some sort of family politics, an act by Blaine that is meant to be controversial, because it's the only way he knows to prompt change.

Insist that Kurt sing a solo with him at Regionals. Dance with Kurt at Prom. Introduce Kurt to his parents as his 'boyfriend', a stern glare protecting him from their judgements and assumptions. In Blaine's mind, only controversy works to get things done.

"Yeah, come on. Shove over."

Kurt laughs and Blaine taps the side of his leg, pretending to push Kurt to one side to make room for him to sit down. But of course everyone in the room (with the possible exception of Abu) knows that there won't be space for the two of them on the armchair, and really the only solution will be for one to sit on the other's lap. Personally, Blaine has no objections to that, and going by Kurt's flushed cheeks and wide smile, he doesn't seem to either.

"There's not going to be room," Alaina sing-songs, rolling her eyes at the pair of them. "I'd just give up now if I were you. Take your seat and get back to perving at the dreamy physique of Aaron Samuels."

Kurt turns away from Blaine to give his cousin a perplexed look, "You think he has a dreamy physique?"

"You _don't_?"

"He's a bit... tall, isn't he? I guess I prefer guys who are-" Kurt breaks off, face now positively scarlet, and Blaine is torn between the pleasure thrumming through him and discomfort at Alaina's sour expression.

Was this pushing too far? He already knows that Alaina is uncomfortable with he and Kurt being boyfriends, and maybe that shouldn't matter. Maybe he should be grateful for her half-hearted support and save this sort of behaviour for private.

But it's just so _dumb_.

Why can't he flirt with his boyfriend in his own house? It's not like they're actually doing anything, just harmless little shenanigans that any couple basking in the pleasure of their first summer together should have the right to participate in. That isn't asking too much, surely.

"You know," Blaine says, leaning in close to catch Kurt's attention, making him turn back to face him. "If there's not room for me to sit next to you..."

"You could do what?" Alaina interrupts. "Perch on his shoulders? Stand on his feet? Dislocate a couple of limbs and lose some vital organs in order to twist your body into a fashionable hat and find a comfortable place on his head? Come back here and sit down, Blaine. I'm not in the mood to bear witness to a game of 'happy couples'."

Kurt seems to have caught on now, his forehead pinched in a frown as Blaine pulls back a little, the movie now completely forgotten, to stare at Alaina.

"What is your problem with us?" he finally says, point blank.

"What's my problem?" she repeats, eyes still fixed stubbornly on the screen and one hand stroking Abu as the other curls into a fist on her lap. "My problem is that you're both- you're not-"

She breaks off and growls in frustration, punching the arm of the couch with her free hand in a loud noise that cuts through the facade of calmness that the room had been precariously maintaining.

"_We're not_?" Blaine prompts, when Alaina refuses to go on.

"You're both _boys_," she says finally. "And, God, I am trying to be all right with that, Blaine, but I can't help it if it makes me uncomfortable sometimes, okay? It's just... you should hear what the rest of them say about you."

Alaina makes a vague gesture to indicate the rest of the household, the people who exist outside of this little TV-room haven. Still sitting in his armchair, Kurt is openly gaping now, and one hand reaches out to brush against Blaine's that hangs dead by his side and tangle their fingers together.

"What they say...?" Blaine murmurs, and he can feel his mouth moving – can feel everything more intensely than usual, in fact, as if the blood pounding in his ears is really pounding all through his body, making him more sensitive to the cold air conditioning and the piece of cat fur stuck to his arm and Kurt's warm hand in his – but doesn't really recognise the noise, because it doesn't feel like his words or sound like his voice.

"You know Mum sent me an email before I came, _warning_ me about you? And Dylan and his wife – they weren't even going to come. Because of course she couldn't tell her family about this, about what she'd married into. They're Christians, you know. Like, crazy, fundamental Christians. And she had to pretend to them that her new husband didn't have a cousin, because her stupid family wouldn't be able to accept you. That's my _sister in-law_, Blaine. Someone who isn't much older than you and me, and yet she still doesn't think that- that being gay is all right.

"I know how stupid it is, how stupid _she_ is, to be like that. And I read what Mum had written to me and got so angry at it, because it was like she thought you were sick or something. It's like you'd turned into someone different. But, to me, you're still _you_ and it makes no difference how many closets you've been hiding in or how many boys you've kissed. I know that, Boo, I do.

"But you should hear them. Mum will start waxing lyrical about what a 'sweet, kind little boy you were' and then my stupid brother will shake his head and say 'we should've noticed the signs' and your poor parents just sit there because _no one_ deserves to have people say things like that to them. And I get that this is hard for you – this whole coming to terms with who you are thing – but it's hard for us too, you know-"

"Alaina!"

Blaine has to shout to cut off her tirade, and when he does her mouth just closes suddenly as if she didn't realise what she was saying.

"I came out almost three years ago. Why are you only saying this now?"

Kurt's hand in his is starting to sweat – or maybe it's Blaine's hand that is sweating, he doesn't know – but now it feels like a lifeline, something he can't possibly let go of. He has a sudden fear that's never really reared its head before, but now is pungent and scary and real, that if he lets go he's going to float away, and with a start Blaine recognises this fear as the one he held at bay after the Sadie Hawkins fiasco.

This is the feeling that Dalton helped to erase: the inexplicable terror that, because of this, because of who and what he is, he'll be perpetually alone. And now that all of this is coming out of Alaina's mouth – said in a voice that for so long has been patronising and obscene and rude but never cruel – Blaine has lost the one person who stuck with him through it all. When he'd come out to his parents he'd called Alaina later that night, planning on leaving a voicemail on her machine, but then she'd picked up and for hours and hours over the phone he'd poured out everything and she'd just listened. That's who she was, above it all: a confidant, a friend, a person who loved him unconditionally in the truest sense of the word. But now...

"It's because of Kurt," she said, and her tone was the scariest thing of all because suddenly the fight was gone. "Because he- he _confirms_ everything.

"Look, Boo. I'm happy for you. I really am. I just- I don't know how to be the right type of happy."

Her eyes have finally left the TV screen and are looking at him now, right at him. It reminds Blaine of when she says the punchline of a joke and looks him straight in the eyes so she can see the cogs turning, see the laughter as it is produced and then hear it sound, and so it feels so strange when she continues in the sincerest tone he's heard in years.

"This is all new to me. All of it. The things you two do and the things you say and the way you act. It's like a double-hit, you know? Because first I have to deal with that fact that you're both _guys_ and then I have to deal with how intense everything is between you two. It's like looking into the sun, watching you. And there's still this little part of me that doesn't want to look, because for my whole life I've been told not to. I've been told that what goes on up there is bad news and even though I'm not supposed to I take a look and hey, they're right. It hurts to watch you two. It hurts to see my baby cousin getting himself involved so deep in things I'll never be brave enough to understand, let alone to do."

"You think I'm _brave_?" Blaine scoffs. "Have a listen to Kurt's story and then get back to me."

And just like that, it's over.

Alaina smiles a little, and she looks more scared and vulnerable and _young_ than Blaine has ever seen before. She is only a few years older than him, after all, fresh out of her first year in college. She'd always seemed so big to him, but as Blaine stares at his cousin, he is struck by how little of the world she knows. She's still struggling to find herself, just like he is. And while she can hide better than anyone else behind her jokes and cocky grins, she still has her own burdens to bear. Blaine just feels guilty that, without even meaning to, he's become one of those burdens.

"What's your story?" Alaina finally asks, moving her gaze to Kurt.

He sighs, and when Blaine looks down at him there's something new in his eyes. A hint of respect maybe, a heightened appreciation at least, for the girl who has fought so hard against her world in order to make a space for Blaine in her life.

"It's long," he finally says, "and not nearly as interesting as Cady's, if I'm going to be perfectly honest."

That gets a laugh from Alaina, and who mutters, "Well, of course. I mean, _no_ story is as interesting as Cady's. Just ask Blainey-boo. This is, like, the thousandth time you've watched this movie, right?"

Blaine stares dumbly at his cousin for a second and earns a cushion thrown at his face for his trouble. He bends down to pick it up, finally freeing his hand from Kurt's grasp and surprised when the fear doesn't flare up in him once more.

"You trying to free up a spot for me?" he teases, stepping closer to the couch and nodding to the section of it previously occupied by the cushion Alaina had thrown.

"Nope," she replies, smug smile back in place and eyes on the TV. "Just throwing a pillow at you for the sake of it. I thought you were going to do a contortion act and make yourself into a hat, anyway. I'm sure Kurt would just love to see how _bendy_ you are."

The eyebrow waggle that accompanies the words is so perfect that it could inspire at least three poems and possibly a Billboard-charting pop song, if anyone in the vicinity were able to write such things. As it is, all it gets two awkward blushing boys, who avoid each other's eyes pointedly as Blaine shuffles back to his previous seat on the couch.

"What?" Alaina asks, exuding an innocence that is fooling no one as, on screen, Cady pukes over Aaron Samuels' jeans. "Did I say something wrong?"


	13. First Time Meeting Rachel and Mercedes

**A/N: Just a quick note to sosha20, whose prompt this chapter is based on - I know this isn't exactly what you asked for, but I came up with this idea and just couldn't get it out of my head, so I hope it's okay.**

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><p><strong><em><span>Something New:<span>_**

**a story of Klaine 'firsts'**

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><p><em>No warnings, no other ANs (except a quick apology for this having taken forever), no nothing._

_Go forth and enjoy!_

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><p><strong>~First time Blaine meets Mercedes and Rachel, prompted by sosha20<strong>

A smart person would know that the moment Rachel Berry uttered the words, "I've been doing some research," they should run for cover. And, generally speaking, Kurt Hummel was a smart person. Really, he was. Just not today.

Today had been, for lack of a more eloquent term, particularly shitty. Karofsky's incessant bullying had reached new heights, and everyone else's total disregard for it had similarly increased to a point that, quite frankly, Kurt found alarming. It just wasn't _fair_. It wasn't fair that he was being shoved into lockers day-in day-out, it wasn't fair that no one did more than shake a menacing finger at the hulking bully, and it definitely wasn't fair that Kurt was being forced to endure through all of this alone.

When Tina got in trouble for her clothes, the entire Glee club stood behind her. When the football guys were harassed or Puck was in juvy or Artie had a problem with disabled access to the school, everyone _cared_. But this time – nothing.

It was as if they thought this was different. As if being bullied for liking singing or for being disabled was wrong, but being constantly attacked for your sexuality was okay. As if homophobia was natural and normal and just the way the world was, so trying to prompt any sort of change was such a lost cause that it wasn't even worth trying to do.

Thus, today, Kurt Hummel was not in the mood for being smart. Which is why, when the aforementioned girl spoke the aforementioned words, he merely exchanged a disdainful glance with Mercedes before turning back to face Rachel and asking the foolish question, "About what?"

"Our competition," she answered immediately, ploughing her way through two rows of chairs in the quickly-emptying choir room to stand before Kurt and Mercedes, effectively trapping them in their seats. "I've concluded that the Hipsters aren't going to pose a threat to us – they're cute, old people, yes, but they lack a strong male vocalist, since their original lead passed away last week (I found his eulogy in the paper – he was a pilot for twenty years before he made a late debut in some off-Broadway productions in New York). The Warblers, however, may have an advantage over us."

Kurt and Mercedes exchanged another look, and the former rolled his eyes while the latter sighed deeply. Rachel, as usual, ignored both and continued on.

"According to my source, their lead singer is rather talented – he's performed at the Six Flags theme park on more than one occasion. He does seem to be new to the show choir circuit though (unlike myself, who has been working in this environment since I won my first award for Prime Performing Pre-schooler in the district competition when I was four), so we might be able to psyche him out with some good intimidation strategies. Take his mind off the task by distracting him or perhaps injure a team-mate or mascot of his to get a winning edge..."

"Is she suggesting what I think she's suggesting?" Mercedes muttered to Kurt, her tone disbelieving.

"I don't know," Kurt replied, "I think we should escape now, though, just in case."

Rachel was still talking (and Kurt distinctly heard the word 'disembowel' in her ramblings), as her audience began to stand, Kurt casting a questioning look at Mercedes' bag as she slung the strap over her shoulder.

"It's _vintage_," she insisted, her tone defensive.

"It's purple and orange," Kurt replied, turning his nose up as if the object in question was emitting a foul smell.

Finally noticing that she was being completely ignored, Rachel threw herself forwards to block Kurt and Mercedes' escape route, her mouth still powering along with phrases like, "Time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted," and "I promise I'll buy you both a coffee if you come."

The latter of the two caught Kurt's attention, and he subsided his efforts to edge past Rachel's outstretched arms, glancing back at Mercedes to see that her eyebrows was raised too – she was also interested in the deal.

Rachel seemed to realised that she had their attention and hastily added, "The Lima Bean isn't far from here at all, and I have it confirmed by more than three sources that it's a Dalton Academy hangout. Of course, no one else can find out about this mission – it's top secret, but I'm sure you'll both understand the need to be discreet."

"I suppose you want us to wear costumes too?" Kurt asked dryly. "Fake moustaches? Balaclavas? Because I'll warn you now that under no circumstances am I donning either of those disguises."

"Me too," Mercedes agreed. "I'm going as I am, or not all. Take your pick, Berry."

"Well..." Rachel seemed unconvinced, but nonetheless turned to lead the way out of the choir room. "I did happen to pack a few extra pairs of sunglasses and some hats, not to mention a lovely trench coat that my Dads' got for me in Milan-"

"You wear the trench coat, hat and glasses then," Kurt interrupted, his tone final. "And be glad that we're coming with you at all. Pick your fights, Rachel. You can't win this one."

Still frowning, Rachel made a performance of her reluctant acceptance of Kurt's conditions. The act lasted all the way out of McKinley, into Kurt's Navigator, and halfway along the highway to East Lima before Kurt switched on the radio and started a loud conversation with Mercedes to drown out Rachel's dramatic sighs. His efforts paid off very nicely, reducing his backseat passenger to a silent observer with a petulant pout as she was forced to listen to Kurt's critique of his latest ebay purchase – a top hat that "should really be reserved for only very special occasions, but you never know when one of them might come around".

That topic kept them going all the way to the small bundle of shops in a suburban area just off the highway, where Kurt pulled over across the road from a small white building, displaying 'Lima Bean' proudly by its door.

"This is it," he said, unnecessarily.

The three of them stayed in the car for a moment too long, uncharacteristically nervous. It wasn't that they felt badly about spying – this wasn't really spying anyway, nothing like the time Rachel, Mercedes and Quinn had snuck into Vocal Adrenaline's rehearsals – but it still felt like an invasion of privacy.

For all Kurt knew, this mysterious band of acapella singers could be gathered around a table in there discussing their setlist. They could be doing an impromptu performance for the baristas. They could be serenading a blonde-haired waitress in four-part harmony. He didn't _know_. And it felt a bit... wrong... to be doing this, to be purposely going to this cafe with the intent of catching a glimpse of their competition.

Then again, this was war. It was team against team, song against song, may the best man win. And the New Directions _deserved_ to win this, they _deserved_ to go all the way to Nationals in New York and to win that too. It wasn't the right of the Warblers and their theme-park-performing lead singer to take all of that away from Kurt.

"Let's go," he said, pushing open his door and stepping out onto the pavement.

...

A smart person would assume that, when someone asked them, "Do you want to get coffee with me?" it didn't mean anything. They'd think that it was something casual, something friendly, something like offering a hand to hold or am enthusiastic smile – things that anyone with good manners does to anyone else who looks like they need something to brighten their day. And, usually, Blaine Anderson was a smart person.

He wasn't spontaneous or impulsive and didn't tend to jump to the wrong conclusions. He was vigilant and intuitive and intelligent. He got angry when he made mistakes, got upset he ran away, hated that he was a _coward_ and a _liar_ and _weak, weak, weak_.

But not today.

Today, Blaine Anderson was being foolish. Because, today, he was on a date. With a boy.

Jeremiah chuckled as he watched Blaine empty another packet of sugar into his coffee, his grey gaze silently, gently teasing. Blaine tried not to be self-conscious about the action, attempting to carefully replace the lid on his cup (and God, why did it have to be difficult _now_?) before giving up on that and instead taking a large sip, gulping down the scorching, too-bitter drink in an attempt to hide his embarrassment.

"Don't be so nervous," Jeremiah suggested with a laugh. "Relax, Blaine, please. We're just having coffee – just a couple of friends hanging out, right?"

"Right," Blaine echoed, positive that he didn't imagine the tell-tale sparkle in Jeremiah's eye that betrayed the lie in his words.

"And take as much sugar as you want," Jeremiah added, nodding at the three scrunched-up paper packets littering Blaine's side of the table, "I don't have to pay for those."

Blaine ducked his head, smiling in a self-deprecating, silly way that made him wonder what it was about this particular guy that made him so nervous, so unlike himself.

Jeremiah wasn't by any means the first boy Blaine had liked – or the first he'd gone on a date with, even though he was the first to refuse to admit that it was a date – but he was different from the others. He was older, for starters, much older than Blaine. And he was far more attractive: stunning and surprising and gorgeous, constantly making Blaine second-guess himself and his own luck at landing so much as a lingering glance from this boy.

But that wasn't all of it.

Jeremiah was... special. He seemed to signify so much, proving that Blaine was _growing_, that he was past the childishness of timid flirting and trading secret looks and lingering touches. Jeremiah was a pinnacle of maturity and poise. He was teaching Blaine what it was like to be an adult, to be a man. He was perfect.

So, really, it was no wonder Blaine was so nervous.

"How's school going?" Jeremiah asked, pulling Blaine out of his thoughts.

He shrugged in reply, "It's okay, I guess. I can't wait to get out of it, honestly. It must be great to know you never have to sit through a Chemistry class ever again."

This was all a blatant lie. Despite his convincing portrayal of a polar opposite opinion, Blaine liked school, and always had. He liked the regularity and predictability of it. He liked spending time with his friends, he liked getting on the good side of his teachers, and he liked learning to be good, learning to be better. School in general, but Dalton in particular, gave Blaine everything he'd ever wanted – a place to be rewarded for curiosity and inventiveness, a place where it was safe, good even, to always desperately want to be _more_.

"I didn't actually do Chemistry, because my marks weren't all that good, so I stuck to the easier subjects," Jeremiah confessed, "But, yeah, I remember what it was like. Nothing ever felt _useful_, I remember. I was always like, 'when I am going to need this is real life?'"

Blaine laughed along with his companion, trying not to squirm uncomfortably in his chair.

Jeremiah's was a popular opinion, he told himself, and it wasn't like they had to agree on everything. Besides, in three years time, when Blaine had finished school, maybe he'd think the same way. Maybe this thirst for knowledge, this constant desire to improve himself, to somehow make himself worthy to be listed with the other 'good people' in this world, would go away. Even if, right now, that was the last thing he wanted to happen.

"Exactly! Like, when am I ever going to need to know the difference between an ionic and covalent bond, right?" he said instead, grinning at the exaggerated shrug Jeremiah made in response.

They fell into silence then, a slightly tense, awkward silence, but one that Blaine was sure was normal on first dates. After all, they were still getting to know each other – finding boundaries, testing temperaments, pushing buttons. It was a dance that every couple played the first few times they went out, a careful little series of manoeuvres as they tried to figure out who to be around one another.

Already, Blaine knew that he couldn't be himself entirely with Jeremiah, not yet, anyway. He had to act older – more like the man Jeremiah was teaching him to be than the boy he still was – and sometimes that meant excluding some facts about himself, changing stories a bit, editing details. He wasn't lying outright, not exactly, but just being cautious, trying only to reveal the best side of himself.

Blaine tugged self-consciously on the collar of his shirt, hoping that all the things he was hiding, all the facts he was glossing over, weren't too obvious to Jeremiah. He wondered for the thousandth time if he should've worn his Dalton uniform instead, if discarding that was the one sure sign that he had betrayed too much of himself to be able to reasonably excuse. On one hand, the uniform made him look younger, served as an obvious indicator that, really, he was still too young for Jeremiah to take seriously. But on the other hand, Blaine felt comfortable in that uniform. For a year and a half now it had been his refuge, his safety blanket. The blazer and the tie made him feel like a part of some miraculous universe that strove for perfection, that was helping along his efforts to constantly improve.

Wearing that uniform was, for Blaine, like singing with the Warblers. It was like feeling the power of twenty voices behind yours, feeling the presence of all these other people who supported you and accepted you for what you were. People who let you fit in, let you become one of them. They'd never tried to change him, never made him feel like he had to pretend to be something he wasn't, and that was what the uniform meant to him. It wasn't a sign of being trapped, or being just another bird in the flock. It was sign a being accepted, being a part of something bigger than just himself. Being a part of something special.

But none of that was something he could share with Jeremiah.

Jeremiah was stronger than Blaine, strong enough to be his own person and define his own place in the world. Jeremiah didn't know that Blaine sung, let alone that he was in a Glee club, and somehow Blaine knew that, if he told him, he wouldn't understand it - that strange power or sense of importance and worth that comes with being in the flock, but flying at the tip of 'V'.

"I'm going to use the restroom," Jeremiah said finally, breaking the silence.

Blaine nodded in reply, taking another sip of his coffee as he watched Jeremiah walk away, weaving through tables and chairs.

Letting his gaze rake over the boy's back, Blaine couldn't help but admire the strength of Jeremiah's shoulders, the gleam of his hair (despite the best efforts of the Lima Bean's unflattering fluorescent lights to make everything look monochromatic), the comfortable fit of his jeans. Blaine smiled as Jeremiah paused by the door to the bathroom, stepping back to let a smaller, brunette boy duck inside before him. The boy looked so horrified at having been presented with such good manners that Blaine wanted to shout to the coffee shop, "That's my boyfriend! He's kind and smart and mature and mine!"

But he knew Jeremiah wasn't quite there yet. And, if this relationship was going to work, Blaine had respect Jeremiah's boundaries, had to let things grow at their own pace. It was a sacrifice worth making.

Finally turning away from Jeremiah's disappearing form, Blaine looked back down at his coffee, surveying the murky brown liquid with a distasteful expression. This blend really was far too bitter. He reached out for another packet of sugar and emptied that into the cup, taking a sip before grabbing for yet another. If the next half of this date was going to be pleasant, Blaine would absolutely have to have a coffee that didn't make him wince every time he drank it.

As he emptied the fifth sugar packet, discarding that too in the growing pile by his hand. Blaine heard a giggle from a few tables over, and glanced up to see two girls sitting there, one watching him with a grin. She caught his eye and laughed again, making him flush as he realised she must have noticed his addition of the two sugars.

"Mercedes, focus!" said the second girl sharply, digging her elbow into the side of the one who was watching Blaine. The first girl – Mercedes – rolled her eyes and looked away, scanning the room with a bored expression.

"I don't think any of those guys are here, Rachel. You said they never left the school unless they were in uniform, and not one guy here is in any sort of uniform, I promise."

"But it doesn't make sense!" the second girl wailed, dropping her head onto the table with a _thunk_. "I have been watching that forum for _weeks_ and it all but guaranteed me that Dalton boys come here all the time. There should be someone here now, I just _know_ there should."

Blaine knew he was eavesdropping and that he should just tune out the conversation and go back to his coffee, but when the Mercedes shot him an 'I know you're listening so why don't you come help out' look, he couldn't resist meeting her eye and giving her a small smile.

"Maybe _he_ knows where all the Dalton guys are," Mercedes suggesting, nudging her friend and nodding towards Blaine. "He's about our age, right?"

The second girl's head shot up and she turned to eye Blaine critically, taking in his shirt and sweater, and then the five empty sugar packets beside his coffee.

"You're still at school," the girl commented, and Blaine nodded slowly, unsure if he was supposed to be respond or still pretend that he wasn't eavesdropping.

The girl stood from her table and strode quickly to his side, holding out a hand and addressing him directly as she said, "I'm Rachel Berry. Seventeen, junior, not single."

Blaine, a little shocked at her forwardness, was slow to shake her hand, and mutter, "Blaine Anderson, sophomore, soon to be taken," in reply.

"Mercedes Jones!" the other girl called, waving from where she stayed sitting at their table. "And I'm single, just in case you change your mind."

Blaine laughed a little at that, resisting the urge to point out that she wasn't really his type. Or, you know, gender.

"Our friend Kurt is here with us," Rachel went on, gesturing vaguely around the coffee shop, "But we don't need him for me to talk to you, so..."

Without being invited, Rachel sat down in Jeremiah's unoccupied seat, making Blaine shoot an uneasy glance towards the restrooms. This would be incredibly awkward to explain if Jeremiah chose this particular moment to return. But Blaine had a pathological need to be polite to absolutely everyone, even girls who sat uninvited at his table when he was in the middle of a date, so he mentally gritted his teeth and turned back to face her, hoisting a courteous smile onto his face as she continued speaking.

"What I'm really here to ask is what school you go to. Because we're in the, uh... the chess club at McKinley High and were looking for a match with the Dalton Academy team. Or something."

The lie did not fall unnoticed upon Blaine's ears, but he maintained his neutral expression as he responded, "Well, I'm from Dalton, but I don't think any members of the chess club are here. It's an in-weekend, which means everyone's supposed to be staying on campus tonight and for the whole weekend. I only got out of it because my parents are home for a couple of days and I'm going to stay with them."

"But if you go to Dalton why aren't you in uniform? My sources- I mean, my _teammates_, they said that Dalton boys were always in uniform when they went off campus."

"We usually are," Blaine explained, "Just, today's sort of a... special occasion, I guess. My parents have signed me out for the weekend, so I don't need to be obey school policy anymore. But usually if us boarders want to leave school premises we do have to be in uniform, yes."

"And what does that uniform look like," Rachel pressed, in a tone that made Blaine wonder if she had a pen and notepad hidden beneath the table and was taking down notes based on his answers.

"Just a navy blazer, navy and red tie, white dress shirt, grey pants, and of course the Dalton crest is on absolutely everything."

"The 'D' that is a stylised bass clef?"

Blaine nodded, his smile turning confused at Rachel's ongoing probing. This girl knew _details_, which would be flattering if it weren't so creepy.

"Rachel, I think we should go now, you're scaring the poor boy," Mercedes cautioned from the other table, her tone only somewhat joking.

"But there's still so much to _know_..."

"He's already told you plenty. Besides, it's not like he's even in Glee club, what we he know?"

Frowning, Blaine asked, speaking to the less creepy of the girls, "What makes you think I'm not in my school's Glee club?"

"I'm not clueless, you know," she replied. "You _are_ here on a date, right? With the cute blonde guy who's in the bathroom? And everyone knows that no one in Glee would ever get a date with a man like that."

"Are you gay?" Rachel asked, her loud voice ringing out in the coffee shop, making Blaine cringe back into his seat. "Because I have two gay Dads, and my friend Kurt-"

"-is ready to go," a voice interrupted, and Blaine noticed suddenly that the brunette boy was back from the bathroom, standing next to Mercedes at the other table, his gaze fixed stubbornly on Rachel. "Come on, Rachel. Dad won't let you stay for dinner no matter what Finn says if we aren't home before six-thirty. And we all know what a tragedy _that_ would be."

Mercedes giggled, standing from her seat and hoisting the strap of a bright purple and orange bag up onto her shoulder. Blaine felt his eyes widen as he took in the item, only half-hearing when the new arrival hissed, "See, even he thinks it's hideous!" and Mercedes replied with an insistent, "_Vintage_!"

"Well, it was nice meeting you, Blaine Anderson," Rachel finally said, standing from the table.

Blaine was thankful that she didn't offer to shake his hand again, instead smiling at him in a way that was entirely un-friendly and seemed to say, 'I have _so_ much more to find out about you'.

"You too," Blaine lied, waving half-heartedly as she hurried after her friends, who seemed to have no objection to deserting her in the middle of the cafe.

The three of them ended up being stuck in a bottle-neck at the door, and Blaine couldn't help but crack a grin as Rachel pushed through first, leaving the boy to chivalrously gesture for Mercedes to follow. Left alone, the brunette snuck a quick glance back at Blaine, his gaze catching and eyes widening a little when he noticed Blaine watching. Shyly, with the same wide-eyed look of surprise he'd had at the bathroom door – as if he wasn't used to being treated so politely, so normally – he quirked up his lips in a small smile.

_See you soon_, the smile seemed to promise, and Blaine couldn't quite shake the feeling that there was something prophetic about it, something important that insisted on evading him.

But then Jeremiah was taking his seat again, completely unaware of the entire exchange. He eyed the two additional sugar packets by Blaine's elbow and let out an easy laugh. And, just like that, Blaine's attention was otherwise engaged, and he forgot entirely about the strange group he'd met one afternoon in the Lima Bean.

He forgot about Mercedes and Rachel, the former's giggles and the latter's probing, bossy tone. He forgot about smiles and waves and little sensations, the simple promise of _soon, soon, soon_ that had been conveyed in nothing but a slightly quirked lip. He forgot about the boy that he'd never even been introduced to, the spies who hadn't quite managed to complete their mission, the obvious signs that everything was only just beginning.

The first feeling of hazel and blue gazes catching, clashing. Changing everything.


	14. First Time Alaina Accepts Them

**__A/N: Sorry that this has taken so long, and sorry that it isn't what people wanted for the first update in almost a year.**

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><p><strong><em><span>Something New:<span>_**

**a story of Klaine 'firsts'**

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><p><em>Wow.<em>

_It's been a while._

_Also, please, please, _please_ don't be offended by anything in here. It's Alaina talking, remember? And she has a habit of being a bit... tough._

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><p><strong>~First Time Alaina Accepts Kurt and Blaine for Who They Are and First Time They Change Someone's Point of View Regarding Homophobia, prompted by AStarWithNoSky + paddyofurniture<strong>

The main problem that Alaina had with Kurt and Blaine was that they were too happy. Which sounded dumb, she knew that, but was still, you know... true. Those lovestruck gays were just too damn happy, and for whatever stupid reason, it annoyed the crap out of Alaina.

She'd talked to Blaine since she'd arrived, seen his big, wide, scared-puppy eyes as he talked about what Kurt had been through – what they'd both been through – since they'd met. The bully and the kiss he stole, the party and all the hysteria that followed, the bird, the change of school, the declarations of love, and all the bloody singing – there was a lot of ground to cover. But that stuff only reinforced her scepticism.

Because, as she watched them snoozing in banana chairs by the pool, Blaine's arm reaching across like a bridge to Kurt, Alaina just couldn't work out what, exactly, they had to be happy about.

The dead bird? Being stuck at different schools? Two weeks of angry, disapproving glares from Blaine's family?

Alaina knew she was a part of that, a part of the aspect of the summer that really should have been sapping away the boys' happiness like a vacuum cleaner. Hell, she could _feel_ the thoughts of 'how dare they', 'it's just disgusting' and 'he was such a nice boy' emanating off her parents and brother and aunt and uncle. Not to even mention her new sister in law. If anything, she was worse than the rest. But maybe Alaina was biased about that, seeing as freaking hated the stuck up-

_Witch_.

"How's dinner going?"

Alaina jumped a little as her mother came into the kitchen, stopping in the centre of the room to survey the pot glug-glug-glugging on the stove.

"You haven't been cleaning up as you go, have you, sweetie?"

Glancing over at the chopping board, Alaina winced at the sight of two carrot tops, quailing in the corner of the board as if awaiting trial before a very unfriendly jury. Her mother was tutting and sighing in a familiar why-can't-you-be-more-like-your-brother way as she picked them up, holding them as if they were infected before tossing them into the rubbish bin.

"They can go in the compost, you know," Alaina pointed out, eyes staying strictly fixed on the pot of gravy she was stirring.

Her mother laughed as if the very concept of compost was something laudable and patted her daughter patronisingly on the shoulder.

"That gravy needs more pepper, honey," she offered in reply.

"Yes, Mum."

Alaina counted to ten in her head as her mother stood beside her, clearly refusing to move until her advice was obeyed. It wasn't so much that Alaina didn't want to take her mother's advice – over the years she'd learnt that resistance was pretty much futile – but it was more that she didn't want to give her mother the satisfaction of seeing it obeyed.

"Pepper, dear," her mother repeated, and Alaina turned away to roll her eyes as she silently complied.

Giving up on any chance of her further contributing to the gravy, Alaina handed her mother the pepper grinder and settled back against the bench, eyes on the oven timer as it counted down to dinner time. She wasn't quite sure if she preferred being alone with her mother – at least she wasn't plainly antagonistic – or when the whole family was together. They tended to scare each other out of being rude, and sometimes it just felt like old times. Sitting down together and talking and laughing and just being family. No judgements, no strained awkwardness, no big neon sign above Blaine that everyone pretended they couldn't see. It was nice, sometimes.

"I feel bad for them, you know," Alaina's mother murmured, stirring the gravy absently.

Alaina looked up and followed her mother's gaze towards the two pool chairs in the backyard, Blaine's arm still spanning between them. She bit her lip, waiting for what would come next.

"Blaine's parents- they... they raised him well, didn't they, honey? You and Dylan grew up with him, and he was so sweet and so-"

"Normal?" Alaina suggested in a deadpan.

Her mother shook her head, as if warding off a fly, "No, I didn't mean that, sweetie. I just meant that he- he was just like any other little boy. He climbed trees and got his hands dirty and he played sports and liked cars and motorbikes and trucks. To be perfectly honest, you were the one we were always worried about, how you used to love joining in with all those boys' games."

Alaina rolled her eyes.

"Boys' games? Mum, there's no such thing as boys' games. When you're ten years old, they're all just games, you know."

"Oh, of course, dear, you know that I understand that. We never said anything to you now, did we? Just let you play around in the dirt and the mud, getting all your pretty dresses messy but never scolding you or saying a thing. 'She needs to get it out of her system,' your father used to say, and he was right, wasn't he, honey?"

"Yes. Definitely."

"And I just... I look at those boys – both of them, mind you, because even that friend of your cousin's isn't such a bad young man – and I just think: what will their parents do? What will they do with the clothes they saved for grandchildren? What will they tell their friends, years from now, when they ask what their son is up to, who he's living with, what he's doing with his life? How will they explain it, or hide it, from those people out there who really object to that sort of lifestyle, to that sort of person?

"Because I know you think we're horrible, honey, I know you don't like what we say and how we act, but really it's only because we care. It's only because we see how difficult life is going to be for those two boys – for your own cousin, our blood and family – and it upsets us so much that this is the life he's going to have."

"He didn't choose it, you know?" Alaina snapped, "It's not like Blaine decided one day that he wanted to... to like boys."

Both winced at the phrasing.

"Alaina, dear, you know that I know that. You want to think that your father, brother and I are terrible, but I think you know that we're not. I just want so much for my sister and her husband to live good, happy lives, to not have to worry about their little boy. I mean, look at Cooper, he didn't do so badly for himself, did he?"

"We never see Cooper, Mum. At least Blaine is good enough to hang around and actually give us a chance to get to know him."

"Alaina, stop," Alaina's mother turned to face her, a stern look on her face. "You are getting awfully aggressive about this and I want you to understand-"

"To understand what, Mum? To understand that you hate it, that you hate him, and are just too much of a coward to say it? You try to pretend that you're not scared of it all and absolutely repulsed by it all, but we all know that you are! Why do you think I moved away from you all – from you and Dad and Dylan? You're all the same, all too narrow-minded and stupid to see that everything you think is just plain wrong!"

Alaina expected her mother to be mad, to do that parent thing were her eyes narrowed and she drew herself up, towering over her daughter alla I-am-your-mother-and-I'm-always-right. Instead, she just stared back, and with start Alaina realised her mother wasn't going to treat her like a child. Her outburst wasn't going to be written off as a silly tantrum. For the first time, she was being taken seriously.

For some reason, it suddenly didn't feel like a success.

"Is it, Alaina?" Her mother challenged, "Is it wrong? Because I think you'll find that more of the world is on my side right now than on yours."

Alaina's voice was measured, halting as she asked, "And you think that the world is right?"

"I think that the world has a better idea what they're talking about than you do," was the simple haughty, reply.

Angry, but mostly at herself, Alaina turned around, stomping over to the fridge to pull out a can of Fanta. She pulled the tab off and flung it towards the sink, ignoring the noise of it pinging off the counter and onto the floor. Her mother shot a look over her shoulder, but Alaina ignored it and took a long chug of the drink, letting the fierce fizz burn at her throat, burning over words and accusations and the wad of guilt that sat there at the back of her tongue.

Staring hard at her mother's back, Alaina tried to will the guilt away, tried to convince herself that it wasn't there, that no part of her was anything like her mother with her backwards, stupid morals. But it _was_ there, it was always there – that basic, natural-feeling sense of discomfort. The sense that made her catch herself when she thought the phrase 'Blaine's boyfriend', the sense that made her stomach churn at the thought of Blaine and Kurt kissing or touching or sharing anything more than innocent hand holding and shy smiles.

She _wasn't_ homophobic. Alaina was positive about that. But while the concept of two men or two women being in love was just good and dandy, it was the reality of it that was... different. Difficult to face, maybe. Difficult to stomach. Especially when it was her cousin – her car-liking, dirty-handed, _normal_ cousin, as her mother had oh-so-kindly spelt out. And God, that was unfair. And God, that was wrong. But that discomfort was still _there_, somewhere inside her.

"What if it were you, Mum?" Alaina finally said, her voice croaky and weak. "What if you and Dad were the ones who had to have a child who was gay?"

"We'd cope," her mother answered, clear and honest. "Because we love our children no matter what, and we'd want the best for them no matter what. We'd just want them to understand that they'd have a hard life ahead of them. That they'd have to be brave and strong and able to survive in an environment that neither of us could ever prepare them for."

She moved to turn off the stove and lift the saucepan away from the heat, motioning for Alaina to step back as she carried it over the counter. Automatically, Alaina went to the cupboard and began taking out plates.

"And I'd want them to understand that it changes our lives too, that as challenging as it is for them to accept, it's also a big change for us. A lot of our expectations for their life, a lot of things that parents like your father and I take for granted, would be gone. They'd never be able to get married, we'd never have grandchildren-"

"Those things could both happen, Mum. Maybe not here in Ohio, and maybe not yet. But one day they might be able to happen."

"Grandchildren, maybe. But never marriage."

Alaina opened her mouth to object, but her mother spoke again, before she could start.

"No, honey. Not marriage."

Another wave of anger welled up inside Alaina, but she tried to quell it, tried to remember that, probably for the first time, she was having an adult conversation.

"Why do you say that?" She asked instead.

Her mother paused where she stood, one hand loosely holding the handle of the saucepan, clearly searching for the right words. Briefly, Alaina wondered if this was the first time she'd spoken like this too.

"It's just not... it isn't-"

"Please don't say 'right'," Alaina interrupted.

With a curt shake of her head, her mother continued, "No, I won't say it isn't right. It just isn't... common sense. That's it. It isn't common sense, Alaina. It's not common sense for them, for people like that, to want something like that."

"Why not?"

"I have no problem with them making their vows to each other, sweetie, you know that. But honestly, honey, marriage vows? In our sacred places? With our sacred people? It's just common sense. Surely you can see that. Would you get those things out of the oven please, dear?"

Alaina was silent, struck dumb by her mother's simple words. It was all still said in that tone, so calm and formal and grown-up, not even angry or so overtly wrong that it made Alaina's neck bristle. It was just... just that. As if her mother had thought this idea over long and hard, and had come to that conclusion. And it wasn't even wrong or homophobic or mean. It was another opinion.

Alaina wondered if, deep down, maybe she agreed.

"Dinner's ready!" her mother called, lifting meat and vegetables out the baking dish and onto plates.

There was a general noise of movement as people came into the dining room, chatting away, almost drowning out the tension still heavy in the kitchen. So unaware of the politics at play in their own lives, the differing opinions that maybe weren't so different. The two boys outside, so clearly in love, and so completely unable to be accepted for it.

_It's just common sense._

Was it? Was it okay – common sense, even – for Alaina to feel the way she sometimes did? Everyone was so quick to pick a side, to say, "I know gay people, therefore I'm pro-gay" and make it seem so easy. But what about those who _did_ believe in the sanctity of marriage? What about those who didn't want things to change? What about those who had a lump of guilt in the back of their throat?

Did it even need to be there? Was it Alaina's fault, really, that she felt the way she did?

She turned back to the window to glance out at the boys, her mouth opened to call again for dinner. But her mouth snapped shut and her voice faded. They were both on one chair now, Blaine on top and pushing down, kissing Kurt so desperately and _wholly_ that Alaina's first thought was to look away, to hide her eyes behind a shaking hand, as if she'd walked in on something private, something secret. Something that shouldn't be seen.

Blood rushed to her cheeks and she tried to calm down, tried not to hate it and think _no no no._ Other things were more important. Carefully, hoping it looked absent-minded, Alaina meandered over the window, blocking her mother's view as she looked up and muttered, "Do you think Blaine heard me call him for dinner? Perhaps I should ask someone to go out and fetch him-?"

"Nah," Alaina said, going for casual – cool, calm and collected, "I'll just yell again. I'm sure he's just- uh-"

_Lying on top of Kurt. Kissing and sucking and pressing and that ridiculous curly hair sticking up and hands roaming through it and over bodies and under clothes and everywhere, touching, tugging, pulling, wrenching Kurt closer, breathing harder – panting almost – straining, straining up and curving down for more and more and _more_-_

"-packing some stuff up. In the shed. With Kurt. They're probably coming." Her cheeks flushed again at the choice of words. "I'll call again, see, don't worry. Blaine! Kurt! Dinner!" She glanced back, trying her best not to see anything. "Great. Good. Done. No worries, Mum. They're on their way."

She was lying. They still seemed pretty tangled up to her.

Alaina's mother looked perplexed, but no more than usual. She smiled a little, shaking her head at what she must have construed as simply her daughter's antics.

"I'll see you all in the dining room in a minute then," she said, carrying out a tray of plates.

"Sure. See you soon!"

Watching as her Mum walked out the kitchen, Alaina waited until she was by herself to let out a deep breath and lift a hand to her burning cheeks. Well then. That was... yeah. That was something.

She chanced another sideways glance at the window, and was glad to see that her baby cousin seemed to have disentangled himself from his make-out buddy. And, now that they'd separated, they were back to being Blaine and Kurt: sweet, young teenagers, just a little bit overwhelmed, just a lot in love. There was nothing wrong with _this_ version of them.

Alaina pushed herself away from the bench, noticing her half-drunk can on Fanta on the bench and taking another long sip before dropping it into the bin. If only it were something stronger. She moved quickly out the kitchen door and through the dining room.

"Just seeing what's taking Blaine so long!" She sung cheerily as she walked passed her aunt and uncle.

The boys were still piled onto one chair in the backyard, belongings scattered around them, presumably dropped to the floor during the would-be crazy-monkey-sex extravaganza of circa two minutes ago. And while a part of her was calm again, happy again with this version of Blaine and Kurt, another part of Alaina was quickly getting mad. Because, dammit, her mother was right, even if it wasn't in the way she intended

Not all of this acceptance stuff was natural, not all of it was basic, obvious stuff. Some things had been so thoroughly taught to Alaina, so thoroughly taught to a lot of people, that undoing it all, throwing it all away and just accepting this new version of reality, of morality, just wasn't practical. It's not easy to change who you are, to change your upbringing, your moral compass, your every way of thinking and way of living. Changing that gut feeling doesn't happen overnight. And whether or not that's wrong or mean or anything, that doesn't change that it's downright selfish of people to expect everything to change for them.

Maybe, over time, Alaina could change completely. Maybe, over time, she could come to accept all sides of this kind of relationship, this kind of life that Blaine now had. But she couldn't change it now, in this moment, no matter how much she wanted to. No person, regardless how strong and confident and perfect they are, could really be perfect at balancing everything, at making everyone happy.

And God knows that Alaina wasn't even close to being perfect.

She reached the boys' side, painfully aware that they still hadn't even noticed her.

"Inside. Now." She demanded, "Or Mum will kill you both."

Blaine and Kurt jumped apart as if they'd been poked with a cattle rod (and where were cattle rods at times like these, when two horny teenage boys needed to be pried apart?). As they struggled to disentangle their limbs, Alaina rolled her eyes and bent down to pick up their discarded items. She looked up again and was pleased to see them now standing on opposite sides of the chair, sheepishly avoiding her eyes. Wordlessly, she handed back Kurt's sunglasses and Blaine's book, waiting until her cousin glanced up before pointedly repeating, "_Dinner_."

The boys exchanged a look, but Alaina turned away, not wanting to intrude. Funnily enough, she felt like she'd done enough of that already this evening. There's something about seeing your cousin rutting his hips into another boy that does that you, apparently.

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><p><strong>In a weird way, this is about Alaina accepting herself, and so opening herself up to accept Kurt and Blaine. I know that's not what the first prompt said, but it sort of felt like a good first step.<strong>

**On a separate note, I have decided to destroy my old list of prompts, unless there was more than one person who prompted the same thing. Let me get my confidence back again, and then I might start accepting new prompts again.**


	15. First Time Finn Catches Them

**A/N: Well. Um. This is awkward. But I'm still here. As is this story.**

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><p><strong><em>Something New:<em>**

**a story of Klaine 'firsts'**

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><p><strong>~First Time Finn Catches Them in a Compromising Position, prompted by Flower pot girl + random4ever + Horsegahl<strong>

Blaine had a problem.

It was something that Kurt hadn't noticed until a while after they started going out. One of those things that you don't notice unless you're dating someone, and then all of sudden something happens and you _do_ notice and it's just kind of generally embarrassing for everyone if you say something about it. So, of course, when he'd first noticed, Kurt hadn't mentioned it, because that was the polite thing to do, right? He'd sort of just assumed that he'd noticed and Blaine had noticed and that Blaine had noticed that he'd noticed what with all the mutual noticing going on, Blaine would do something about it and the problem would never bother them again.

Only, it didn't really work like that. It didn't really work like that at all.

Because, lo and behold, four months into their relationship and well into their first summer together, the problem was still happening, on a more and more regular basis, if Kurt's estimations were right. And sure, that one time they'd managed to get around the problem and still have a jolly good time without it being an issue, but that was one time and Kurt had kind of been hoping for more times, but the situation in which they could artfully navigate around Blaine's little problem just wasn't presenting itself and, quite frankly, Kurt was getting frustrated.

This would probably be a good time to mention that Blaine's problem had nothing to do with anything below the waist. It had nothing to do with there being some weird scar on him, or something really, really _odd_ that he liked to do that Kurt just wasn't a fan of. So Kurt supposed he should be grateful that it was nothing like that.

Except that it was really difficult to be grateful when the actual problem that your boyfriend had was that he was just so darn awful at getting your clothes off. Which was irritating, to say the least. Excruciating, to say the most.

And it wasn't like it was a one-time thing. It's not as if, one day, Kurt had worn something with such a huge assortment of buckles and clips and buttons and laces that Blaine had just stared at it, thought, _nope, not worth the effort_, shucked his own shirt off and gone back to kissing Kurt.

Oh, no. This was a regular thing. A perfectly normal event.

Normal to the point where, during any given make-out session, it was now practically inevitable that Blaine would have his shirt off in under five minutes, while poor Kurt would be left there fully clothed for the duration of the experience. And Blaine's hands would be running up and down Kurt's sides, fingers fiddling with buttons and tugging at hems and everything, but he just quite simply was utterly incapable of getting any of Kurt's clothes decisively off.

Kurt was beginning to suspect he would die like this. Lying beneath Blaine, feeling so lovely and _hot_ and kissing away at his boyfriend absentmindedly, while internally chanting instructions that, no matter how loud he mentally sung them, just didn't seem to reach Blaine. Who would continue fingering uselessly at buttons for a good fifteen minutes before giving them up as a lost cause and settling for pulling aside Kurt's collar, and sucking what Kurt could only assume was an apologetic hickey onto the small part of his shoulder that Blaine could reach.

And that was nice.

But – and Kurt shocked himself a little with the thought – Blaine ripping his shirt of entirely and sucking non-apologetic hickeys onto other parts of his skin really might actually be quite a lot nicer.

So, Blaine had a problem. A serious one. One that, one day, as he was pushing through his wardrobe in search of an outfit for the day, Kurt strongly suspected he might just have solved.

Press studs.

Normally, Kurt never would have admitted to anyone that he owned a press-stud shirt. They didn't exactly scream 'classy', after all. Yet, this shirt had been on sale, and it was _beautiful,_ and so maybe that made it okay for him to own it. Hopefully.

It wasn't as if anyone with any comparable sense of style would be seeing him in it anyway. Just Finn, Carole, his Dad and Blaine. And _Blaine_, if all went well, might just get a hint and finally _literally_ tear his boyfriend's shirt off in a moment of passion. Kurt smiled at that. It was lovely thought.

"Going to see Blaine today?" Burt asked when his son skipped downstairs, his voice coming from behind the large newspaper he was reading at the table.

"Nope," Kurt replied, "He's coming over here, remember?"

He disappeared into the kitchen, finding a packet of muesli in the pantry and a tub of yoghurt in the fridge. He was humming to himself as he poured the cereal into his bowl, adding two generous spoonfuls of yoghurt over the top.

"Carole and I will be out all morning," Burt called from the dining room. "I don't remember giving you two permission-"

"I told you about this last week, Dad. Blaine is working this afternoon, so he'll only be here for a couple of hours in the morning and then we're both going to Six Flags so I can watch him perform. All the doors will all be left open all the time, and Finn will be here anyway to make sure we don't get up to any 'funny business'."

The entire tirade was delivered in a robotic tone of such utter boredom that Burt was a little taken aback. He certainly didn't remember already having had this conversation. But now that Kurt mentioned it, maybe he had said something a few days ago about going to see Blaine at Six Flags...

Burt cleared his throat to cover his silence.

"Good," he finally said. "As long as we're both clear about the rules."

"Crystal clear," Kurt assured him. And why was there a funny sparkle in his eyes when he came over to the table? He sat down opposite his father and snagged the fashion section that was left discarded to the side.

Burt peered at Kurt for one more second over the top of his paper before raising it again and going back to reading the Sports. He cleared his throat again, noisily. When was it that his kid stopped being able to be read like an open book?

Kurt still had that suspicious twinkle in his eyes when he bade goodbye to Burt and Carole, wishing them a good day and complimenting them on the fantastic weather that they'd been graced with for their trip to visit Carole's sister. She was moving house and had asked for the family to chip in and help. Burt's guilt about letting Finn out of the responsibility of helping was dampened by his relief that at least _someone_ else would be in the house with Kurt and Blaine. He didn't know what would be going on with them, but that look in Kurt's eyes... no one wants to see their kid looking like that while thinking about his boyfriend. Not under their roof.

The moment Burt and Carole had pulled out of the driveway and disappeared down the street, Kurt spun around to face Finn.

"You have to leave," he said, without preamble.

Finn shook his head, "Nuh-uh. Your Dad left me this big list of chores I have to do while him and Mum are gone. If I don't do all of them, Mum will kill me, and then I'll be kept in tonight and I won't be able to go to that show thingy with Rachel. And then _she_ will kill me and- no. No way. I'm gonna start on them in a minute."

"In a minute?" Kurt asked.

"Well, I'm up to this really tough level in Halo, so I've gotta beat that first. But straight after – I swear!"

Kurt rolled his eyes, watching with a scowl as Finn hurried back upstairs.

"Close your door if you're going to be playing video games!" Kurt called after him. "The noise will distract me from homework!"

He listened for the sound of Finn's door slamming shut, then grinned at his victory. Burt and Carole were out of the house. Finn was immersed in Halo with his door closed tight. And – he glanced at the clock on the wall – Blaine was due over any moment. Operation press-stud was looking very, very promising.

For the next few minutes, Kurt withdrew into the kitchen, pulling out the punnet of strawberries he'd bought under the guise of wanting to have them with his morning muesli, and scooping out another spoonful of yoghurt into a pretty dish. He also cut up some apple, some banana and a pear. When Blaine arrived he'd be casually munching on some lovely fruit salad. Dip, suck, giggle, bite. Perfectly innocent. Blaine wouldn't know what had hit him.

Right on cue, the doorbell rang, and Kurt carried the fruit and yoghurt out onto the table before walking calmly to the door and pulling it open. Blaine, gorgeous as always, stood on the porch, smiling widely. He was dressed absolutely impeccably in pale pink shorts and a checked button-down shirt. Kurt bit his lip to hold in a grin at Blaine having forsaken the bowtie today. It was like the stars were aligning, everything falling perfectly into place for Kurt to unleash his nefarious plan.

Catching sight of Kurt's strained expression, torn between nervous and far too excited, Blaine's smile faltered.

"Am I early?" he asked, one hand on his pocket, feeling for his phone.

Kurt tried to school his face into something more neutral and less concerning.

"No, of course not. I was just-" he broke off, playing embarrassed, "Well, I hadn't actually finished breakfast yet. Late start, I guess."

Blaine's grin was restored, and he reached out to tug a bit on Kurt's collar, stepping in a little closer.

"I'd never have been able to tell," he assured, and he quickly ducked in to kiss Kurt's cheek.

Unable to hold back the smile and blush elicited by the feel of Blaine's lips so, so sweet and so, so _casual_ on his skin, Kurt stepped back to let Blaine inside. He closed the door behind them and followed his boyfriend to the dining room, where the bowls of fruit and yoghurt were still sitting on the table.

"You're welcome to some if you want," Kurt said with a vague gesture, taking a seat and instantly reaching out for a strawberry. "Or I can make you some coffee, tea, juice..." He trailed off, dipping the strawberry into the yoghurt and then slipping it neatly into his mouth.

Blaine shrugged, sitting down opposite Kurt. "No thanks, I'm good." He grabbed a piece of apple for himself, forgoing the yoghurt and biting it in half, chewing on one part while he held the other loosely between his thumb and forefinger.

Kurt tried not to seem like he was staring, which was difficult given that there really wasn't anything else in the room to look at. Nothing but Blaine absently nibbling at the second piece – and God, he was like a chipmunk or a bunny and that was unfairly adorable – his eyes a bright amber-gold as they watched Kurt's fingers, drumming on the table.

Feeling Blaine's eyes on him made Kurt feel powerful, somehow – captivating. Like how he'd felt singing Candles in front of a packed auditorium, conscious of nothing but that golden gaze fixed so softly on him, like a spotlight, like a beacon. Blaine's eyes were always so loaded, whispering things like _you move me_ and _I love you_, and it was exhilarating.

Picking up another piece of fruit, Kurt watched Blaine watching him. Dipped the slice of pear purposefully in the yoghurt and then lifted it to his mouth, tongue slipping out to lick at it a little, tasting the bitter-sweet of the yoghurt, the sharp-sweet of the pear. He let the slice settle on his teeth, sucking the last of the yoghurt off before biting down slowly, feeling like a melodramatic idiot but sort of thrilling at the way Blaine's eyes were fixed so intently on his mouth.

Then Blaine blinked and looked away, his cheeks flushed and his gaze now resolutely on the table, and Kurt swallowed down his victory with a smile, before plucking a strawberry from the bowl. He treated himself to one more run-through of this wonderful, silly little game, this time going all out and swirling his tongue around the tip of the fruit, licking off every last white fleck of yoghurt before taking the whole strawberry in his mouth and finishing it off.

"You are _cruel_," Blaine said, his voice already too low and his eyes too wide.

"I'm just eating breakfast," Kurt replied, tone full of innocence.

Blaine stood from his chair, walking around to Kurt's side of the table and leaning over him, face too close, hands gripping too tight on the side of the table on the back of Kurt's chair.

"Are you going to tell me that you'd eat like that with your father in the room?"

Kurt shrugged, "Well, maybe I'd tone down the theatrics a bit." His expression turned coy as he added, "But it worked, didn't it?"

Blaine shook his head, moving closer.

"Cruel," he repeated in a whisper.

Kurt was giggling when Blaine's lips touched his, light and careful at first, but quickly building up. Kurt immediately lifted a hand to his boyfriend's collar, jerking him closer harsh and hard, turning in his seat until they were facing each other, and the angle slotted just right and Blaine stumbled forward a step so his legs were on either side of Kurt's, his body looming above. Tilting his head back further, Kurt smiled into the kiss, his tongue licking swiftly, teasingly, into Blaine's mouth.

Blaine tasted like apple and toothpaste and that achingly familiar spicy-sharp-strong sort of herb, something borne from golden soil and raised on hot summer sunlight and melting winter frost. His breaths were hard and shallow against Kurt's skin, and Kurt wrapped a second arm around Blaine's middle, pulling him in closer and closer until finally he got the hint and hiked one knee and then the other up onto Kurt's chair, settling on his lap.

They kissed for what felt like too little time – never, enough long enough – but Kurt's body was stirring, wanting to strain up, and his fingers were itching to grab and pull and dig into the flawless flesh of Blaine's back, the strong, smooth arch of his shoulders. Kurt pulled back a bit, his lips less insistent, his grip on Blaine less firm, and Blaine effortlessly followed suit, slowing their kisses to tiny presses, little nips, until they stopped completely and settled with their foreheads resting together. Blaine wriggled a bit on Kurt's lap, putting his weight, warm and solid, on Kurt's thighs, his hands running down to trace circles around Kurt's hipbones. Kurt smiled and sighed, kissed Blaine's lips once more and then leant back, putting some space between their faces and their chests, tearing apart the syncopated pounding of their hearts.

Blaine exhaled loudly, his eyes doing that shy little flicker down and back up and his mouth falling open into an easy smile.

"That escalated quickly," he murmured, the words almost a laugh.

Kurt made a sound of assertion, meeting Blaine's eyes briefly and then looking away again.

"In a good way," Blaine added, as if there'd been some doubt in the matter. "Do want me to get off you?"

Nodding his head, Kurt waited to be sure that Blaine was firmly back on the ground before standing up himself, head whirling a bit at the movement.

"It's temporary," he muttered, eyes closed as he willed away the dizziness, and Blaine nodded, apparently assuming that Kurt was talking about the head rush.

Kurt shook his head, "No, I mean, you getting off me." He opened his eyes again, stared straight at Blaine. "I just think we should probably go upstairs. Before we... continue."

Blaine's eyebrows raised, the question implied before he even asked, "We're continuing?"

"Do you not want to?"

The fact that Blaine all but ran to the bottom of the stairs and waited there expectantly for Kurt was taken as a good sign. Kurt laughed and caught up with his boyfriend, and they hurried upstairs hand-in-hand, making a beeline for Kurt's room.

Once inside, Blaine paused for a second to look sheepish, but Kurt just scoffed and pushed Blaine down onto the bed, climbing on top of him and kissing him hard and hot. His hands jumped straight to the top button of Blaine's top, and it was kind of ridiculous how desperately Kurt wanted Blaine to be as shirtless as possible in as little time as possible. He undid one button and then the next, pulling the fabric aside and pressing wet kisses onto the slice of skin it revealed. Blaine's hands were stroking at Kurt's back, one coming up so his fingers could tangle in Kurt's hair while the other slipped lower, gripping onto his hip, fingers scrunching up in the material of Kurt's shirt.

Kurt pressed two, then three, then four more kisses to Blaine's chest before pulling away, rolling to the side and settling beside Blaine on the bed, propped up on his elbow as his spare hand traced down and back up the still fastened buttons on Blaine's shirt.

"Stopping there?" Blaine asked, his tone half-amused, half-shaky with how absolutely gone he was. Kurt could tell that Blaine hadn't been expecting this type of haste at all. He relished the fact that, even now, he could still surprise his boyfriend.

Shrugging, Kurt let his gaze slide appreciatively down Blaine's body, eyes lingering on the heavenly slab of skin peeking out from his partly-undone shirt.

"Well," he said, eyes slowly moving back to meet Blaine's, "It's your turn now, isn't it?"

Blaine smiled, but the amusement was leaking out of his eyes.

"Um, I think I've had my turn already. I mean that- _performance_, with the strawberry. That was really enough for me."

Kurt shook his head, persisting with his playfully adamant tone, "No, I insist. I get to see more of you, so it's only fair that you get to see more of me."

Blaine's smile wavered for a moment, but then he was grinning again and gently admonishing, "Kurt, am I sensing some ulterior motive?"

_Yes!_ Kurt wanted to say. _Yes, you jolly well are!_ But instead he feigned confusion, shaking his head and biting his lip and thinking as loud and as hard as he possibly could, _I am wearing_ _a shirt with press studs, you idiot. Is this not enough of a hint? Just look at them hard enough and they'll probably undo!_

Blaine's eyes were still frustratingly earnest and unsuspecting, glancing down at Kurt's body and then back to his face.

Kurt tried thinking louder, thinking harder. He could almost feel his face turning red with the effort.

Blaine's hand on Kurt's hip squeezed it affectionately, skimming up his side, curling around his collar to tickle at the skin visible there.

Kurt tried thinking even louder, even harder.

Blaine's fingers traced around the front of Kurt's shirt, starting to trail down again. Bumping over the press studs. And then his hands stopped moving and his gaze stuttered down to Kurt's front and his eyes were so wide and disbelieving and _yes_, Kurt _knew_ that telepathy was a perfectly reasonable communication medium.

"New shirt," Kurt lied, his expression maybe just a little victorious as he watched Blaine, unable to take his eyes off the front of Kurt's top. "Do you like it?"

Blaine was silent for a good long minute, his fingers coming back up to trace around the first stud in Kurt's shirt, tugging at it softly, experimenting.

"It seems to me," he finally said, still looking at Kurt's shirt, "That either there has been a radical change in the fashion world recently, or-" he broke off, gaze moving up to lock with Kurt's, "You're trying to give me some sort of hint."

Kurt smirked, rolled his eyes.

"Maybe. Perhaps."

"Hmm." Blaine ducked back down, kissing absently down Kurt's neck and then pausing when he reached his collar. "Interesting."

He flicked the finger still fiddling with the stud, and the _pop_ of it undoing seemed loud over the shuffle of clothes and skin and sheets. Slowly, Blaine leaned in and kissed the newly exposed area of skin and bone and tiny transparent quivering hairs. Kurt resisted the urge to squirm at the ticklish feel of stubble against his collarbone. He could feel Blaine flick open another stud and then another, and then suddenly Kurt was shirtless and Blaine was all but devouring his chest and wow, that was fast. As Blaine's teeth clipped over Kurt's nipple he bit back a moan, and was immediately very aware that perhaps below the waist problems were really more the type that he should've been thinking about because this was just-

"God- _Blaine_."

Kurt could feel his boyfriend's grin against the top of his ribcage – his _ribs _– and then Blaine was nipping and sucking at the skin there and Kurt's fingers were digging into Blaine's back and why on earth was _he_ wearing a shirt this was completely ridiculous? Desperately, without much consideration for what order or direction or _way_ buttons tended to undo in, Kurt starting clawing at the front of Blaine's shirt, surprising himself when he let out a growl of frustration as his fingers slipped for the fiftieth time at the feel of Blaine's _tongue_ flat and wet and warm on his stomach. And this was so stupid because they were _buttons_ for God's sake, simple, easy-to-undo buttons, and if Blaine would just stop all that miraculous, wonderful, amazing kissing for just one second then maybe Kurt would be able to focus enough to get Blaine out of his shirt too and-

_Oh._

Huh.

That explained a lot.

Kurt froze with the realisation, a hot blush creeping into his face. So maybe Blaine didn't have a problem after all. Well, at least not a unique problem. Oh, God. Now Kurt felt like an idiot.

"Kurt?" Blaine's voice was muffled against the jut of Kurt's collarbone, and the hum of his voice vibrated through Kurt like a song, like a perfect harmony, sending tingles through his skin, making his stomach clench in a not-so-uncomfortable way.

"Mhmm?"

"Is something wrong?"

Blaine was looking up now, lips moist and red, eyebrows knitted in concern when he caught sight of Kurt's expression.

"Um..." Kurt tried to avoid Blaine's eyes, wanted so badly to hold back the confession bubbling in his throat because yes, he was _stupid_, but there was no need to let Blaine know how stupid he'd been. He glanced at his bedside table, at the wall on the far side of the room, at the door that they hadn't bothered to close in their rush-

At Finn, eyes goggling like a tarsier, standing in the doorway.

"I- I... uh. Uhm."

Finn coughed, looked down, looked out the window, looked briefly at Kurt and Blaine tangled up on the bed and then winced and looked down again. Then coughed again.

"Uh, Kurt? I- uh, I have a question. Just that- I... I was about to start my chores. Wondering if you know where the vacuum cleaner end... thingy... is."

Kurt blinked. He absolutely did not pay any attention to Blaine, chin propped on his chest, staring up at him.

"In the linen cupboard. On the floor. Check near the back, behind my basket of sewing stuff."

Finn nodded, turned to leave, turned back, opened his mouth to say something, and then turned again and walked away. Leaving the door wide open behind him.

Blaine let out a deep breath, burying his head in Kurt's neck. Kurt could feel him smiling there, trying to hide it.

"This is _not_ funny," Kurt informed him. "He is my _brother_. I have to _live _with him for at least another year of my _life_- Stop laughing, Blaine- Blaine! This. Isn't. Funny."

"It's kind of funny."

"If you think this is funny there is something seriously wrong with you."

Blaine lifted his head from Kurt's neck, still smiling, eyes sparkling with laughter.

"If there is something wrong with me, it's entirely your fault, Kurt Hummel."

Kurt scowled.

Because why couldn't Blaine just have said that at the beginning?

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><p><strong>AN: To anyone still here - I need two more prompts for another story I've been writing, Last Ten. If I don't get them soonishly, I'll be using leftover prompts from this, which means that some additional prompts won't be appearing in this story. I don't even know if that's a threat or not. More of a public announcement, I think. Just so you know.**


	16. First Apartment

**_Something New:_**

**A story of Klaine 'firsts'**

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><p><strong>~First Apartment, prompted by lillibug618 and CLlaura<strong>

When Kurt first saw the apartment, he was decisively underwhelmed.

It was... grotty. And the neighbourhood was dodgy. And the stairs leading up to it were pure torture.

"Oh, _Kurt_ – it's perfect!"

Rachel, however, seemed to disagree.

"Look at these high ceilings! We can get some rugs from a charity store and cover up the worst of the floor, and then maybe put a TV against that wall, our beds over there. Oh, and we could buy one of those vintage room-separator things to put between them, or maybe curtains or something!"

Kurt scowled, walking over to the sink and trying a tap. The water spluttered to life, coming out a murky brown for a few seconds before it turned clear.

"This place is a dump, Rachel."

"No – it's an opportunity," she turned to face him from the other side of the apartment – a long way away to fair, enough space for them to really set out a nice living space between their beds and the kitchen. "Haven't you always talked about getting to decorate your own place? This would be perfect for that. Look at all this _room_!"

The last words were accompanied by a little squeal, and Rachel spun out into the centre of the space, dodging around columns and a damp patch on the floor.

Kurt couldn't help but smile.

It _was_ a dump, undoubtedly, but the place also had a certain- a certain _air_ to it. Once the windows had been opened and some of stuffiness let out, he was starting to be able to himself living here. They could put a couch there, a rug on the floor in front of it. The walls would need to be painted, of course, be he and Rachel could do that. And over there, by the window, maybe they could put a desk in, so they could work away from the walls filled with noisy plumbing for the room next door.

"And look!"

Rachel's voice was muffled, coming from inside what looked like a large, built-in cupboard. Maybe they could store linen in there – extra blankets for when it got cold at Christmas and cushions to spread over the floor when Blaine came to visit and he and Kurt wanted to curl up at the foot of the couch, warm and comfy in each other's arms.

"Free bikes!"

His friend's grin was too wide for Kurt not to smile along too, admittedly somewhat teasing as she wheeled out two beaten-up push bikes. It was a ridiculous find, something stupid and oh-so-New-York that it made Kurt smile harder and wider, all too taken in by Rachel's enthusiasm.

It was hardly a sign – they hadn't exactly had 'includes free bikes' on their list of things they were looking for in an apartment – by in the thrill of the moment it seemed like one. Already, this dank, dark, damp room was beginning to feel like home, and as Kurt hurried towards Rachel to grab one of the bikes, he couldn't help but laugh at the novelty of it, the excitement of deciding, _Yes, this is it. This is where I'm going to be when my dreams come true._

...

When Blaine first saw the apartment, he was completely overwhelmed by it.

At first, when Kurt had told him about it – when he'd carried his computer around the place, showing Blaine the massive room, the sliding front door and the creepy stairwell that led up to it – he'd been a bit confused. This wasn't the type of apartment he'd ever envisioned Kurt in. But, as the weeks went on and their Skype dates became less and less common, he could see the room transforming before his eyes. It was like watching a puppy turn into a dog, where you never really noticed the fur getting coarser and scruffier, the ears drooping, the body slowly growing to a more proportionate size for the paws, but then all of a sudden you looked at it realise with a start – _oh, it's a dog now._

Blaine had watched the apartment turn from _an apartment_ into _Kurt's apartment_. It was as if, with each passing day, Kurt and Rachel were claiming it for themselves. Letting their lives imprint on it, and letting it, in turn, change them.

As miraculous and beautiful as it was to watch, it was sobering too. All it did was remind Blaine how much he was missing. How much of Kurt he was losing.

And then he went to visit, carrying too much weight and too much sorrow, but putting on a brave face because _this was his boyfriend's apartment!_ He would be living alone with Kurt (and Rachel) for an entire weekend and nothing – _no one_ – was going to hinder the magic of that.

The door slid open and Blaine's heart hammered. He so needed this to be perfect, he so badly needed to see this place and, more importantly, to be able to see _himself_ here. Because this apartment was a part of Kurt's life now, an intricate, utterly innate part, and if Blaine couldn't picture himself fitting in then- then maybe he really had done irreparable damage.

Only, when he looked out from behind the flowers he held, nothing else really seemed to matter. Nothing but Kurt's surprised face, his smile and his eyes and God how Blaine had missed it all. He'd missed Kurt's warmth – so different from the warmth of any other body. He'd missed the feel of being close to him, the strange sense of rightness that came from them being together. And Christ had he missed the feel of Kurt's lips, his kisses, so sure and casual and _right_.

They kissed hard and fast and too-short and then Blaine looked up and he wanted to see the apartment, he did, but Finn was there and Rachel was there and so much was going on that he hadn't expected to have to handle. His heart was drumming out a guilty beat and suddenly he realised that he and Kurt needed to _talk,_ but this place, this city, felt stifling with its fullness, its busyness. He was finally released from the myriad embraces, traded into the security of being tucked under Kurt's arm and it was okay, he thought. Everything would be okay.

The apartment was perfect and beautiful and so, so _Kurt_. He could feel his boyfriend emanating from the rugs on the floor, the carefully-selected furniture, the tall, curved vase that Kurt extracted from the cupboard and untangled himself from Blaine for long enough to put the flowers in. Blaine was dying to go to Kurt's bed, to rip closed the curtains and pull Kurt down on top of him, to shut out the wide space and the imposing columns and shadowy corners of the room and cocoon just the two of them in a tiny little space, somewhere private and secret and all theirs.

But Rachel was chatting and Finn was grumbling and Kurt was grinning too happy, too wide and it made Blaine's head hurt, trying to take it all in.

He was from Ohio, after all – he was unused to places like this. And yes, he absolutely knew he belonged here, but it was more of a _here with Kurt_ than a _here in New York_ or a _here in this apartment_. The place he'd longed for – the one he'd been looking for all of his life – had nothing to do with high ceilings and decorating potential and everything to do with safe and comfortable and warm. He wanted to be with Kurt. The 'where' of it was secondary.

And what was terrifying, what continued to overwhelm Blaine as he settled at the foot of the couch, chatting absently to Finn and watching his boyfriend flit around in search of a jacket, was that Kurt wasn't all _there _anymore. He'd changed and that was normal and wonderful and incredible, but it was scary all the same to notice that change. It was so obviously tangible, embedded so strongly in this apartment. Even the difference between this place and Kurt's room at home was shocking, the fullness of his old room contrasting so starkly with the emptiness of this one. This room didn't feel- it didn't feel like a home, to Blaine. Yet as he wriggled in discomfort, Kurt wondered around with a small smile on his lips, fingers tracing along the walls as he ducked behind the curtains his bedroom and then appeared again, still looking so serene, so at peace.

Blaine didn't feel right here. He felt young and naive and stupid. Stupid to have thought that time and distance wouldn't have changed him and Kurt. Stupid to never have seen before now just how much Kurt meant it when he said that New York was his dream. Stupid to have assumed that he was in any way a part of that dream.

Because, really, that was what overwhelmed him the most. That was what this first apartment of Kurt's seemed to say, seemed to creak in its pipes and whistle with the wind outside.

_He's moved on,_ it said, _Grown up. And if you don't do it too, you'll lose him . You'll lose him to a city too big, too mature for you to face alone. The same city that he's already conquered, that has already started fulfilling his dreams. A place he'd never leave behind to be with you._


End file.
